ALBUM REVIEW: All You Embrace — One Step Closer
Babe, wake up! New emotional hardcore just dropped, we can pit, and be sad! What more do you want? Emo blends in to hardcore like butter melting on toast, and hardcore loves itself some melody, this couldn’t have worked out better for ONE STEP CLOSER. The Pennsylvanian outfit’s second outing All You Embrace sees them explore the close relationship between the two genres whilst delivering on their endless ability to make wallowing about teen growing pains punchy and memorable.
It’s the perfect time for All You Embrace to release; listeners and band alike get to take a collective sigh after a heady dose of escapisms during the record. Just as your self-subscribed coping mechanisms and inner monologue ordered, you don’t need therapy, you need a combination of incendiary guitars and emotional melodies to get you through the night. Tracks like The Gate bring autumnal melancholy to the forefront, whilst being ridiculously singable, and Giant’s Despair balances the usually tight hardcore status quo with a gentle acoustic bridge.
The building blocks of All You Embrace make so much sense; with the band tending to their roots they’re growing into one of hardcore’s new powerhouses, writing songs with and seeking advice from KNOCKED LOOSE’s Isaac Hale and Mat Kerekes of CITIZEN. Their meticulous evolution is more than a passing fad that can be found in the likes of brittle TikTok virality. You can hear every ounce of energy that’s put into Your Hazel Tree and Orange Leaf, thanks to the stunning production, which are transportative to more woeful times.
Most of all the record signals a strong shift in the few genres used; quality is widely cascading throughout all of them with subtle nods that elevate their sound, the quartet can go from 100 mph riffs to slow and steady melodies that soothe the achy pains of teenagehood. But best of all they can blend both of those, whether it’s a synthesis of the two or they’re fighting to the top spot in a track.
Sombre closing track So Far From Me epitomises the emo-leaning aesthetic that has leaked into their sound, a dusk setting where the leaves are sodden and stuck to the sidewalks after falling off of the trees for the year. It brings out a humble side of ONE STEP CLOSER whilst they maintain their pressure cooker explosiveness. It’s these sorts of developments that get a band through the second album teething process, if there’s room to grow ONE STEP CLOSER’s vines will fill every crack until they inevitably break out and take over any space they don’t already occupy.
Rating: 9/10
All You Embrace is set for release on May 17th via Run For Cover Records.
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