“A silhouette drowning in the hollow.”
If the phrase “split this shit wide-the-fuck-open” were to be materialized, Durham’s hardcore brutalizers Long Goodbye are the final product. Maybe the strain of contemporary blandness has finally reached the boiling point for everyone; chugs, riffs, breakdowns, and artillery blast beats haven’t been this in-demand since Subway served actual five-dollar footlongs. Even so, this was more than likely the inevitable trajectory all along, external factors notwithstanding. Everyone asks, “Why did all those MySpace bands drop incredible projects and vanish?” To take a wild guess: too few people cared back then, as opposed to the many more that do care now. The Partisan Turbine made a recent comeback, Fallen Figure is plotting a return, and As Blood Runs Black remains in the recrudesce mix. None of this is coincidental. Those who grew up listening to the same pig squeals on “Etombment of a Machine” just like the rest of us decided it was the coolest fucking thing ever and (perhaps subconsciously) knew that sentiment was all but universal. Ergo, the reignition of core. The list is becoming too extensive to name every act that’s making this renaissance as successful as it’s been, but to put it plainly, Long Goodbye are quickly becoming one of the very best in that regard.
to reconcile with death for the sake of a beautiful ending was the maturation release for Long Goodbye. In contrast, A Whispered Promise of Failure intersects progression and irresponsible crowd-killer macabre to an absolute maximum. From a songwriting perspective, this is far and away the best Durham’s murdercore outfit has sounded compositionally, not before inducing thoughts of indiscriminate homicide with every note. Cuts such as “when commentators fall silent” are wall-to-wall with panic chords and sectionally mid-tempo bass drops to the sternum, with “my dearly departed” incorporating drive-by shooting blasts with unfathomably suffocating kicks. Despite a lean sixteen-minute thrashing, Long Goodbye maintains an exquisitely laborious pace throughout the EP. Thanks, guys. Maybe it’s time for the UK to consider pit sheriffs as a viable job offering.
Long Goodbye, as they’ve maintained from the get-go, do not fall into the sensory overload trap. Nothing feels aimless or haphazardly contrived. Rather, A Whispered Promise of Failure‘s biggest strength is found in every moment subsequently building towards the next. “god’s waiting room” will have most reduced to a puddle of placenta within seconds, but it’s ultimately Long Goodbye‘s chief goal to revitalize listeners with brief drawbacks and strategic forebearance before eviscerating you into complete nothingness. Like many of their constituents, Long Goodbye aren’t resigned to complexity or overzealous execution, but rather cohesiveness and an aptitude for knowing when to relent.
Capstoning A Whispered Promise of Failure, with everything from a clean fingerpicked spoken word passage to a swelteringly chuggy outro, “farewell from a fading transmission” is Long Goodbye at their most versatile. Hardcore, metalcore, or whatever denomination you want to chalk it up as, tracks like “farewell from a fading transmission” are gold standard showcases of how to footnote everything prior. If trends continue, this serves to be the latest ceiling for Long Goodbye before they inevitably breach it once again. It’s incredible what can be accomplished when raw, unfettered emotion dominates the backdrop of any genre, let alone a partition of the underground scene that was founded on utmost expression.
With an exclusive string of smaller releases under their belts, Long Goodbye, if there’s truly anything to prove at this point, are left with presenting a full-length venture somewhere down the road. Their methodology works irrefutably well on condensed projects, but it’s whether or not a potentially half-hour or longer exhibition will leave as considerable an impression as the rest of their discography. Eventuality guarantees it, but for Long Goodbye, that could very well be the next artistic milestone that propels them beyond local stardom.
A Whispered Promise of Failure is what commitment to a working formula fully encapsulates. Long Goodbye have had it seemingly figured out all along, only to build upon previous iterations every step of the way. At just a few years young as a band, they have a litany of avenues ahead of them, all appearing to be fully self-controlled and deterministic. At the rate at which the revival movement has taken off, who knows how many more acts equal in ambition will have sprouted up by the time Long Goodbye release again. Nonetheless, Long Goodbye are in sole possession of their own future, and right now, it’s pretty damn bright.
