Isbjørn

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GuD

Really dig the eerie intro track. Looking at the album cover and being more familiar with the more jangly poppy styled emo bands Topshelf puts out, it was not at all what I expected. The segue into basically hardcore territory took me offguard for sure, too. Sounds a lot like Converge.

Track two starts off sounding more Orchid-influenced but gets a bit more varied, I liked it a lot.

Opening riffs on track three are pretty tight and the 'leads' that come later are also pretty good. Then it slows down, kicking the mud for a bit before sweeping back up with the familiarly played leads, more heaviness and cathartic vox.

Airport Song is so far my favorite, probably because I can actually hear bass. At times it still sounds like there's 3 guitarists instead of a more familiar 1-2 guitar and bass arrangement. Really dig the palm-muted chugging towards the end but I wish they sounded... heavier. The bass, vox, and cyclehum noise on the outro that bleeds into the next track is pretty sick.

Not sure where the sample on track five is from but it's pretty interesting I guess. Reminded me of those Bessie Smith samples on Indian Summer songs.

Track 6 seems to come at you pretty abruptly after something so mellow but it works. I think the screams on this track are the best on the album.

By track 7 it started to feel like they were using the same ideas over and over. You've got more trebly, high end guitars at double pace with lots of reverb creating this sort of dissonant atmosphere while drums are pummeling away and a deeper guitar mix changes chord progressions.

Track 8 was a bit refreshing at first, more of a slow jam that helped to sort of break things up a bit before going back to what I was saying before. More spoken word bits lead to a pretty heavy breakdown. The last audible words- "I'm not coming home!" hit a little harder on their own without the rest of the band.

Honestly by this point I was kinda done and tuned out. The rest of the album sounded more of the same. Which leads me to my final verdict: This is a good album. It's a little repetitive but it's hardcore so you know that going into it. Definitely can hear Converge and Orchid all over the place. The things that you could complain about with this album are things you could say about a lot releases, especially in the punk realm. I might be a little biased because it's been a while since I've listened to hardcore like this so it sounds a little fresher than it might to a more regular hardcore listener. I guess it's average, but they do average pretty well.

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I spit bullets in my feet
Every time I speak
So I write instead
And still people want me dead
~msc