“We wilt, we rot / we decay as we’re forgot“
2023 is a tough time to be queer. The average person might tell you the world has never been more accepting of diverse identities and it’s “all sorted”, whereas the lived experiences of many LGBTA+ people couldn’t be more different. Venting anger and finding joy in spite of this is deeply personal and naturally takes every form. Death Goals come from the corner of the hardcore scene that speak most firmly of all this, and have chosen to embrace “queercore” on their new album, A Garden of Dead Flowers. As the sequel to their acclaimed debut The Horrible And The Miserable, it brings back their brand of relentless hardcore screamo in a longer, more varied package. This time, it’s unmistakably queer, brimming with aggressive micro-songs, chaotic soundscapes, raucous vocals, and many, many breakdowns.
The production is much like The Horrible And The Miserable, capturing all the blistering noise that two people can possibly make. Some additional guitars, bass, and feedback is added, but the simple orchestration of Death Goals as a drum-n-guitar band is preserved. These songs are the captured sparks of a live performance, as if the next take could have all noises aligning very differently. Much of the riffing is pointedly dissonant, using guitar as percussion with tasteful (and not indulgent) effects. Particularly-incidental guitar noise is crafted into the intro and verses of “Loveless” and “Death Goals in Cursive”, the latter slipping into post or doom metal territory with its sluggish outro.
Death Goals make use of the longer runtime on this record with attention to detail in every moment. My favourite track, “Ultraviolence”, opens on a descending riff that drags you into its undertow, ending on a pick-scrape to haul you up for another dunk. Guitarist/singer Harry Bailey shrieks a tale of impassioned self-hatred (“Trapped in my skin… Spent all my life simply waiting for the hearse”). A minute in they hit you with the melodic segment, a (relatively) smooth bridge sung by drummer George Milner where the viewpoint shifts, either to challenge the previous speaker, or perhaps divulging their own deeper thoughts (“The body you inhabit / is nothing more than a mask”). A title-drop chorus is pulled together from the preceding riffs, then the track’s true ending is this classic Death Goals breakdown – guitars alternate between a deep crunch and a shrill, dissonant chord, like an orchestra hitting all their favourite notes at once.
Most tracks have these slow-down, riff-worship segments, like “P.A.N.S.Y.”’s expansive outro. It’s not just the longer tracks though, as the best breakdown is at the end of “I Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead (Taking A Bullet For You)”, tweaking its tempo with sickening glee. Though these breakdowns are endearingly stupid, there’s some technical stuff too (for example, “Last Night I Had A Dream About Death”).
A key Death Goals fixture is the aforementioned approach to their vocals, with both its members take turns on the mic. Harry Bailey’s voice cracks like a distorting amplifier to deliver high energy screams, shrieks, and occasionally melodic hooks. George Milner appears mostly in verses with a deep, “hardman” vocal, endearingly British in their diction. This sort of variety is important in such heavy music, and gives the band a natural way to provide multiple viewpoints within one song.
The record sings and shouts about aspects of the queer experience: the challenges of dysphoria, the complexity of heartbreak, and the beat-down of society. They don’t read like diary entries, but they’re not at all ambiguous either. It’s poetry about facing and living with your demons, and punk music that names its oppressors. On “If I’m The Enemy Then Who’s The Protagonist?” they sing: “What doesn’t kill you will kill the rest of us”. On“The Year Of The Guillotine”, “We hate your guts and you hate ours back… but we have everything you lack”. And even though these words are meant to sting, the delivery makes them joyous, too.
Even on the record’s gaudy “Faux Macho”, queerness is not embraced without the barbs that it brings; this is pride as protest. Completely unlike how their debut ended (in classic melodic-screamo style), this closer brings clapping, gang vocals, and two different catchy choruses. After concluding A Garden of Dead Flowers with “Faux Macho”, Death Goals could go anywhere from here. And what has been authentically captured throughout this record is hardcore joy – through, despite, and beyond adversity; no garden without decay.
9/10
Death Goals are on tour throughout the UK over the next few weeks, the dates for which can be found here. You can pre-order A Garden of Dead Flowers here (UK) and here (US) ahead of its release on the 5th May, through Prosthetic Records.