The Exposition: Hardcore/Screamo/Emo/Whatever It’s Called This Week

Published by Al Young | Filed under Music

We have a new set of features here at Starve in Heaven, kids: a weekly (or more frequent) series with the subject of the best local bands in any given genre. The aim is simple: exposure for the little known (but greatly talented) bands, and a certain hipster kudos for me for my knowledge of the pseudo-obscure. We start with the oft used terms of screamo and hardcore: two terms often incorrectly used, as people who are already readers of SiH may have already noticed my dismay at. I’m going to spare you the rant and just get into the bands:

Gaza City Blues - MySpace

The downtempo instrumental leanings of the likes of I Would Set Myself on Fire for You and Circle takes the Square combined with the ferocity and immediacy of Neil Perry. Layered guitars mesh intricacy and vehemence in a style most wonderfully suited to the genre, and the vocals do not disappoint either: considering their origins of Wolverhampton, they are clean and emotive in a fashion so pure any human listener would feel the cathartic effect of their initial recording. The lyrics worth the paper which they are written on, which is becoming most rare: ‘but how is it possible to be the oppressor and the victim at the same time?’ screams of a desire to find a rational dichotomy, and by god it does scream.

Hips Unite - MySpace

God. The drumming. God.

It’s like giving crack to a child with a pair of dustbin lids, a snare and a bass drum. It’s heaven. The guitar parts are far more accessible than a lot of their contemporaries’: the on-off chord jerking serves to provide a little more dancability to the mix, in a turn away from the musical elitism the genre seems to breed. The screaming itself is a little eccentric as well: emphasis is not placed on technique at all, but rather the emotion behind the music. Yes, he will one day lose his voice but their music will be that little bit more awesome until that time. You have to suffer your art, right?

Stella Dawes - MySpace

Progression in music is a wonderful thing: my favourite songs (Envy’s A Warm Room and Circle Takes the Square’s A Crater to Cough In as but two examples) start soft, but end in an orgasmic sonic cataclysm. Stella Dawes have taken this another step further: the songs start hard and just carry on upping the ante. Vocals travel from a scream to a chant to delicate singing. Their journey is a wonderful one to listen to. They’re also one of the only bands which I have ever come across which make chainsaw guitars sound anywhere near pleasing. Seriously: they make me want to ask for just a little more muddiness to their tone. A bit more of that crunch. Anything for that more of that sound. That godawful sound. That wonderful sound.

I’m clearly a masochist.

Manrae - MySpace

More of the Indian Summer/City of Caterpillar bent, Manrae combine elegant indie-esque guitars with guitar noise over carefully orchestrated drumbeats. Distortion, meet your polar opposite of clean, treble-biased sounds. Despite its seemingly polar self-contradiction, the combination works to good effect. The vocals walk that oft-tread line between fragility and strength and always seem as if they could break at any moment. The songs aren’t just demonstrations of shifting dynamics: they’re the very up-and-down nature of life itself. It’s truly an endearing quality.

Now, if I’ve wet your appetite for the emo/screamo/kittencore/hardcore/whatevercore scene of Birmingham and the Midlands, I must disappoint you: Stella Dawes is the only band out of these still going, the rest burnt out before they had the chance to sell out. Obviously. Nonetheless, this is demonstrative of the diversity our fair region has to offer, and testament to the works of prior greats in their chosen specialities.

A new slew of bands would not go amiss though, if they were as good as the above mentioned bands. Hint. Right there.