ALBUM REVIEW: Aimless Dread – End You

It seems hardcore and punk solo projects aren’t all that common. Perhaps there’s something about the energy of the music that requires a group of individuals to bounce off one another. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for the Philadelphia-based musician Eric Smith though. Adopting the moniker END YOU, Smith has spawned what he describes as “a debut years in the making” in the form of Aimless Dread. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like he needs any help when it comes to intensity. In Smith’s own words, the record tells a story of “creeping realization that perhaps nothing good will ever happen again.” The result is an album dripping with piss, vinegar, bile and more. It’s sure to go down well with fans of the throat-grabbing metallic hardcore of the likes of CONVERGE or THE CHARIOT, as well as a host of other names from across hardcore and punk.

Smith allows just a few moments of noise before the album rages into life with its opening track SLPWLKR. From the outset, everything about this feels raw and gritty, with raucous guitar riffs that bleed at the edges. It’s the perfect vehicle for the music itself, capturing all of its biting savagery. The great opening run continues on Old Haunt and The Call which follow. The CONVERGE comparisons are strong here, and there’s also definitely a noise rock element. The latter is no doubt a product of Smith‘s time in the Virginia-based collective THE CATALYST, and an influence we hear time and again as the record progresses.

Surely one of the strongest features of Aimless Dread is Smith’s vocal performance. With lyrics fuelled by both personal struggles and political frustrations, Smith sounds consistently furious and often utterly tortured. It makes for attention-grabbing stuff, evoking the likes of many of the best frontpeople in metalcore and hardcore. One of his most striking performances comes on the aforementioned Old Haunt. As on much of the rest of the record, he spends most of the track screaming his lungs out, but it’s when he drops to a quiet whisper around the 3:30 mark that he really has us leaning in. This sets up an explosive screamed finale in which he plays what can only be described as an aggressive game of call and response with himself. It shows impressive range, and a good command of variation which serves the record well.

For an album as visceral and violent as Aimless Dread, there is a surprising amount of melody on this record. One of the first and most obvious signs of this comes on the album’s fourth track, Equinox. This piece, an instrumental, opens with a harmonic lead guitar line before giving way to extensive melodic riffing. Elsewhere, Smith’s vocals also provide the occasional source of melody – sometimes even when he’s still screaming. We’re not talking massive sing-alongs here, but tracks like X’d Out and Alt Delete definitely feature what you could call at least semi-catchy hooks.

If there is a criticism of Aimless Dread, it’s perhaps that there is no real let up over its 45-minute runtime. The quality doesn’t drop, but there is a risk listeners may become a little too used to its sheer violence. The aforementioned Equinox may break this up to an extent, as might the album’s ninth track, Solstice. Aside from a few distant backing vocals, the latter of these is another instrumental piece, this time with swaggering riffs which almost verge on doom metal. At the end of the day though, neither of these instrumentals are particularly mellow, so it’s hard to think of them as genuine breaks.

This may mean that some people feel Aimless Dread outstays its welcome ever so slightly. If that is true, it’s only by a very light touch. The record’s later songs are just as savage and solid as its earlier ones. Smith certainly never loses any of his intensity, and keeps the highlights rolling in till the very end. There’s the album’s eighth track Asterisk for example – another absolute rager with definite shades of EVERY TIME I DIE. There’s also the one-two of the rather obviously furious and riff-heavy Copstomp, followed by the relatively straight-ahead punk of 11th track Widowed.

While Aimless Dread feels like a lot we’ve heard before, it never feels derivative. Instead there’s a vitality, an urgency, and a freshness here that makes it hard to turn away from. Laying aside quite a nit-picky criticism of length, this is an album of consistent, bracing quality. As a debut solo offering, it’s quite the feat, and one that many will surely hope gets a well-earned follow-up.

Rating: 8/10

Aimless Dread is out now via Pax Aeternum.

Follow END YOU on Bandcamp.