Labels: The Mylene Sheath
Review by: Alex Deller
If you’re a punx of a certain age, you may well have a certain affinity for a certain type of post-hardcore that rather sounds like this: big, crunchy, perhaps a tad obvious, but chock-full of thumping riffs and standout hooks. It’ll remind you of picking up a Quicksand promo for paper round pennies at the local record fair or hearing Handsome on a Kerrang! cassette and wondering just what the hell that was all about. Other names to drop would be Shift, Understand and Helmet circa ‘Aftertaste’ when the band were at their poppiest but also their most melancholy. If you’re one of the three or four people that haven’t clicked away from this page in abject disgust then welcome, because ‘The Bridge’ is most definitely for you: a soaring, deafeningly-melodic slab of 90s post-hardcore that’s neatly filled out with some sunbaked stonerisms and manages to wallop you in all the right places. The standout track is clearly ‘Southern Comfort’, but there’s barely a duff moment to be had and it’s a total doozy whether you’re still coasting along on Torche’s last sugar rush or simply want an excuse to deliriously tug at your XL Threadbare t-shirt while wearing a back-to-front baseball cap. WONDERFUL.