“The sun is rising, and my feet are bound to a world that’s rotting.”
Many eyes are on the hardcore scene right now. The likes of Turnstile and Knocked Loose finding unexpected and deserved success, lighting up an audience we wouldn’t have imagined ten years ago. As you trek back through the genre’s history, the diversity within it is staggering, so it’s no surprise that the artists that surface are those with a lot of gloss. The gnarly strain of metallic hardcore is just as valid, aligned hard with sludge, thrash, and traditional punk, destined for smaller rooms that are infinitely more humid than any arena show. Armed For Apocalypse can be found at these genre crossroads, carrying the origin of the 00s metallic hardcore scene into a very different decade. They have been deliberate with their pace – THE EARTH IS BURSTING BENEATH ME is their fourth album in eighteen years.
The opener “DROWN” is like an anchor that hits you at terminal velocity. It’s got it all: moments that humble you with low, heavy riffing, and galloping segments that will set a room churning. Whenever the beefy low notes ring out with a slight bend, the result floors you, something that the band keeps up across the record. Another key part of their sound are the vocals, which must be emphasised as a particular strong point. Nate Burman is powerful, deep and raspy at once. His screams have a unique style, throwing a hint of vibrato on the long takes and closing with a spiteful snarl on the short barks. It’s the kind of voice that really elevates the band, giving them a recognisable stamp.
This is a record without weak moments, and plenty of favourites. Singles “FISTS LIKE FEATHERS” and “IMMORTAL” are mid-tempo sludge hits, both dipping into post metal styles. The ending of “SPELLBOUND” demonstrates Armed For Apocalypse’s demonic low-end with eerie drones and gratifying lyrics (“gripped by your strangulation / can’t win your satisfaction”). “LOST WITHOUT A LIGHT” wins riff of the record (year?) with an absolute uppercut that drops one minute in; this had me scrambling to replay the track every time. In the same vein, “KEEP UP APPEARANCES” is another exemplary two minutes bleeder, flying fast out of the gate then slowing down for rudimentary activity at its end.
We don’t plug into these genres for their variation, but this record more than justifies its length through several more expansive tracks. “BEYOND THE MIRAGE” slows the pace down at the end of side one, demonstrating the band can become a doom band at the flick of a switch. “BATHED IN A TEPID POOL OF MY OWN FILTH” and “THE EARTH IS BREATHING BENEATH ME” together forming an epic that closes the album. The former is an instrumental feedbacker, a creaking mass of distortion, like a gigantic engine stuttering with every pull of its ripcord. After all hope has been snuffed out, the melodic chords that open the title track are like the sun on a freezing day. The sound of Armed For Apocalypse becomes contemplative yet no less heavy, even as clean guitar ebbs in for the first and only time on the album. Ritual Violence pulled some similar moves for its ending “Eternally Broken”; the latest LP is a clear-cut winner among Armed For Apocalypse closers.
A natural comparison will be to Converge, not least because Kurt Ballou has handled the production on this record (flawless as ever). Armed for Apocalypse are much deeper in the sludge-trenches, operating at slower tempos without mathcore, instead revelling in those stunning low-end riffs. If you’ve been raised on the new wave of hardcore where LPs hardly fit on one side of a twelve inch, your patience could be tested on THE EARTH IS BREATHING BENEATH ME. For the rest of us, this is a full-course dinner where every crumb gets consumed.
8/10
THE EARTH IS BREATHING BENEATH ME releases through Church Road Records on the 24th April and can be pre-ordered here.