ALBUM REVIEW: Life… And Everything After – Gloves Off
It feels pretty safe to say that we’re in something of another golden period for metallic hardcore at the moment. Arguably starting in around 2016-2017 with the breakthrough of bands like KNOCKED LOOSE and CODE ORANGE, the scene has been in rude, robust health for some time now. Here to prove that 2022 should be no different are Pennsylvania’s GLOVES OFF with their debut full-length Life… And Everything After. Arriving on January 28th via Upstate Records, it’s an expansion of sorts on March 2020’s Life EP, a release whose four tracks make up the first half of this record. Granted, it’s not the most conventional approach to releasing a full-length, but there’s nothing about Life… that feels disjointed. Instead, this album works as a potent and cohesive whole, one of masterfully metallic intensity and aggro.
While you won’t hear much hardcore nowadays that doesn’t have a bit of a metal influence, Life… reveals that GLOVES OFF are more than happy to lean full-tilt into the ‘metallic’ side of the equation. Opener Pinnacle In Timelines proves this outright – a bone-breaking first volley of thrashy riffing, blackened blasts, and bleak, doomy stomp. Of course, it’s all injected with a hardcore sensibility for a track whose near five-minute runtime takes absolutely no prisoners. If CONJURER and KNOCKED LOOSE faced off in a cage fight, this is what it might sound like.
As the record progresses, it soon becomes clear that Pinnacle In Timelines was just the tip of a very heavy iceberg. The gloves are off (get it?) and the band aren’t leaving until they’ve dealt a knockout blow, or nine. Second track Death Awaits provides just under two minutes of high-speed barking aggro, while In Reflection follows to mine perhaps more traditional metallic hardcore territory with chugging riffs and dissonant panic chords. Recent singles Conqueror Worm and My Death Was A Banquet stand out too. Each delivers their own world-endingly crushing breakdown, with the latter’s tight, techy chug providing perhaps the album’s most punishing moment of all.
Front and centre of GLOVES OFF‘s metallic attack sits the band’s powerhouse vocalist Cody Clark. Often trading scorched bellows with guitarist Ethan Brockelman, Clark‘s trachea-shredding performance is easily one of the record’s most compelling features. His lyrics pack quite the punch too. Inspired by the writings of legendary poets like Edgar Allen Poe and Arthur Rimbaud, they grapple with themes of life, death, grief and loss, with lines like “I’m not prepared for this” and “You can’t breathe life back into me” focused far more on catharsis and release than any of hardcore’s often more motivational fare. It’s powerful stuff – the kind of extra layer that only adds to the overall weight of an already weighty record.
With all this going on, there’s absolutely no risk of listeners getting bored with Life…‘s perfectly judged 31-minute runtime. Each track stands tall in its own right, with closer Between Greetings And Goodbyes providing a final gut-punching highlight. Taking one last detour into startlingly blackened territory, it rounds off a record that never fails to surprise or impress. The hardcore scene may be pretty oversaturated at the moment, but Life… And Everything After still sits at the upper end of the genre’s finest offerings of recent years. It’s a powerful, varied and all-round devastating record that makes for a debut of impressive weight and maturity. Here’s hoping that the ‘Everything After’ is really just the beginning.
Rating: 9/10
Life… And Everything After is set for release on January 28th via Upstate Records.
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