ALBUM REVIEW: Common Love Common Nausea – Calcine

With the hardcore scene seeing such a resurgence over the past few years and a bevy of great new acts coming from all corners, it’s increasingly difficult to stand out in such a crowded space, but with the backing of UK heavyweights Church Road Records, new Parisian mob CALCINE have the ingredients to do just that with their debut album Common Love Common Nausea. It’s not big, it’s not clever, but it’s fast, aggressive and nasty hardcore that hits all the right cornerstones of the genre to deliver a raucous, frantic and fun LP. 

Lyrically, the album launches tirades against social oppression, police brutality, racism, animal liberation and more, all through a lens of (mostly) virulent beatdown, but there’s occasional moments that break up that flow in creative ways. Opener Attack To Win is built on a handclap beat to set the scene, while penultimate track Des Vies À bout again pairs visceral screams against lightly twisted synths and trippy beats. Immediately after Attack To Win, though, 23:11 and Back To Fight rip through blistering hardcore until a particularly gnarly chugging breakdown in the latter that flirts with death metal and searing guitar leads. 

Vocalist Stef howls her way through, a snarling, raging inflection that goes for the jugular immediately, even on the aforementioned electronic tracks, and though they offer some respite from the carnage, those elements don’t surface in other songs, which is a shame given bands like CANDY are introducing glitchy electronics into their music to great effect, so it feels like CALCINE maybe missed a trick here. Regardless of that, Common Love Common Nausea is still a solid hardcore record. There’s blistering riffs, flourishes of beatdown and more extremity, battering drums that’ll reverberate like your head in their pits and an uncompromising attitude. 

That’s where CALCINE, and Common Love Common Nausea, excel. With Autopsie’s churning bass, metallic hardcore riffs and double kick drums that feel custom-built to get your nose broken to, it offers nothing but bruises while Amnesic brings stabbing guitars to a chaotic maelstrom that runs it, and listeners, ragged in less than two minutes. Songs know how to do their damage as efficiently as possible, there’s a pervading air of violence-imbued menace and CALCINE never drop the intensity below 11; for a band only on their debut album there’s a very exciting future ahead of them. 

Rating: 8/10

Common Love Common Nausea is set for release on June 21st via Church Road Records.

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