I saw these guys yesterday live and I previously hadn’t listened to a full album, just went on an invitation. It was a very powerful, high-energy gig, mostly dominated by Jeremy Bolm’s stage presence, and lots of stage diving (by people from the crowd, not Jeremy) and occasionally wall-to-wall mosh pit. Touché Amoré is one of those hardcore bands that are just dripping authenticity that I can’t resist.
Now, the day after I’m listening to their latest record and it’s pretty good. I assume as I go towards the previous ones they will get rawer. I’ll check that out.
This band started from death metal and from album to album steered sideways to finally arrive to this absolute classic goth metal sound represented on this last record. The throaty, harsh vocals from their past add an interesting flavor while the clean, deep voiced goth singing arrived to accompany it. I wouldn’t have their previous record on replay, but this one hits home. It’s a set of beautiful dark songs overall.
Just a couple of months ago I wrote I hope Zeal & Ardor doesn’t sleep on their signature style of “soul metal” and keeps evolving, growing, exploring further. And here it is. The new record has dropped and it’s nothing in line with their previous albums, and that is absolutely the best thing that could have happened to this band. It’s also a great feeling to read the same sentiment echoed over this record’s Bandcamp page from other people, too. It’s rare that a band can innovate and keep innovating so much, and their fan base taking the course with them and supporting their journey.
As for the record itself, I honestly don’t really know what to write or how to articulate my thoughts, rather. It’s fourteen tracks, which is a lot, and there’s an immense diversity. From calm but creepy lullaby, through massive metal road rage, to their usual beats and pulse but with bits of electronics now, ambient outtake with synths, and hard rock banger hits—it is a lot. I will need many more listening of this to digest properly, but I know I love it. Now I kinda feel like I’ll like the individual songs better than the album as a cohesive unit, just because it’s so non-cohesive and not in a conceptual way. Anyways, let’s try and articulate these feelings again in a few months’ time. Until then, I’ll just keep listening.
It’s a new find, the kind where it’s obvious from the first track I hear that it’s a match. Great metal sound with a grunge feel to it and strong female vocals. What makes it stick is how honest and human it is. It’s like friends from the neighbouring rehearsal room throwing a concert.
They do this soul-blues-metal whatever the third time, and it still works. I postponed playing this record for a long time because I thought two albums of this was probably enough, but here I am, finally listening to the third one, and it’s still great. It’s rawer and more metal-like than the previous ones perhaps, but I cannot even imagine repeating that smash-in-the-face-feeling of their first arrival when this whole style just blasted into the music scene.
Btw, it’s still hard to believe how ahead of the curve I was being on a Zeal & Ardor concert in a club in 2017, at the very moment when the first album dropped. And now, I cannot get a ticket to their stadium tour in town. But, they deserve all the fame and success, I just wish that they keep going.
I also feel like I don’t want to put them in a box and want them to stay there for ever. I can easily imagine this style to evolve and grow beyond what it is now. There’s already a process there that I see in their three-record span, and this is a band I wish won’t be afraid to reach further and innovate more.
This record is such an amazing balance of being full of zest, groove, great tunes and moods, while also being technical and musically complex. And the latter is by no means detrimental to the prior. It’s just extremely smart and also extremely enjoyable metal.
The vocals sound like witch house but in rock, it’s eerie and soft but also smooth and comforting. Otherwise it’s overall dark rock with an amazing atmosphere. It’s hard to put my finger on it, like I’m trying to slap a genre label on it, but it’s really not about the genre but the mood.
I also wanted to put the follow-up record here instead of this EP, but this just kills so hard, and it is not replicated on the full-length unfortunately. Fuck unfortunately though, thanks for these four tracks.
I’ve never used deathcore as a genre definition before, but it just makes so much sense after listening to Lorna Shore. Also, seeing “blackened death metal” as a genre on Wikipedia is part funny, part makes a whole lot of sense as well.
As for the music itself, this is an amazing blend of stuff that I like (which are noted in the above definitions). It’s also great focus music to me, as a backdrop when I’m not writing copy just doing design work.
