“I’ll watch you die a marionette with no strings.”
Hardcore-inspired metalcore in many ways is a sparse breath of fresh air for the overall genre. With bands like Knocked Loose and Vein.fm among the more recognizable names, they nonetheless stand as settled ascenders atop a thinly populated mountain peak. Recently, however, more groups continue to make the climb as hardcore continues to firmly tighten its grip on the genre. Amidst this growing pack of wayward travellers are the methodical Church Tongue. Since their conquest began in 2015, Church Tongue have released two EPs in 2018’s Hell is Empty and 2021’s The Hubris of Gods Departed. Four years later, Church Tongue has made another productive upward scale towards auspicious greatness with their strongest arrangement to date, You’ll Know It Was Me.
Demonstrative of hardcore staples, You’ll Know It Was Me has the mold of an eighteen-minute rudimentary exposition that Church Tongue ensures listeners will become familiar with by its conclusion. Poignantly angered ex-Vatican and current PSYCHO-FRAME vocalist Mike Sugars earth-shatteringly echoes melancholic lyrics alongside the broodingly chug-heavy, distortive, and breakneck instrumental work of guitarists Nicko Calderon (Knocked Loose) and Chris Sawicki, bassist Jack Sipes, and drummer Kyle Spinell. This is especially apparent on You’ll Know It Was Me’s first two tracks. “Heart of Darkness” and “One Hand Wrapped Around the Sun” exemplify everything that has made hardcore-laden metalcore increasingly attractive as time has gone on. Plethoric tempo changes and high-octane aggression combine with warmly buckled guitar tones into a brass-knuckled four-minute barrage. Listeners better have eaten the punches; Church Tongue’s sonic drubbing has only begun.
“When It Betrays” and “The Fury of Love”, featuring Colin Young (Twitching Tongues, God’s Hate) and Crystal Pak (Initiate), respectively, are the next one-two combo to follow. If it wasn’t already apparent at this juncture of the EP, Vatican and Knocked Loose sympathetics will have found plenty to revel in. Sugars and Calderon aptly provide a suitably healthy aggregate of influence from their other projects whilst ensuring Church Tongue’s signature sound has been concretely established. Comparatively against their two prior releases, You’ll Know It Was Me feels more focused and consistent. This tandem of songs reinforces that very notion with seamless alterations in pace and controlled belligerence, which is further strengthened by impressive features from Young and Yak.
One evident constant since Church Tongue’s inception is the masterful production that has continuously gave each release a truly hardcore composition and feel. The production quality of You’ll Know It Was Me is no different. “Bury Me (One Thousand Times)” stands as more of a melodic track that distinctively showcases the aforementioned. Church Tongue’s ability to have “Bury Me (One Thousand Times)” reverberate just as massively as the previous songs is a testament to their exceptional faculty for knowing exactly how they should sound and formulaically interweaving it with each song.
The final and titular track featuring George Clark of Deafheaven is a slight anomaly in approximation to the rest of You’ll Know It Was Me. Atmospherically melodic and slowburning at times whilst still having phases of crushing progression, Church Tongue evinces a tightly orchestrated assembly of variation to close this masterclass of a hardcore-mended metalcore EP. Perhaps metaphorically suitable as far as the structure of You’ll Know It Was Me goes; Church Tongue graciously gives listeners the chance to remedy their wounds as their third release concludes.
Ten years and three releases later, Church Tongue indeed continues their prosperous ascent towards stardom. Given the meteoric rise of Knocked Loose and PSYCHO-FRAME’s expeditious increase in the “MySpace revival” ranks, whether Church Tongue remains constant or changes pace in output remains to be seen. For now, Church Tongue has bestowed upon us both their most vigorously composed release yet and a model hardcore-filled spectacle that will be relentlessly indulged in until they return to serve another musically permeated beating to everyone that will be left keenly anticipating.
9/10
You’ll Know It Was Me releases on February 14th through Pure Noise Records and you can pre-order it here.