ALBUM REVIEW: Desertion – Spite House

On their sophomore album, Desertion, SPITE HOUSE delve deeper into tragedy. Infusing their post-hardcore sound with a 90s punk undercurrent, the band channel guitars and brutal lyricism into reflective musings on the events that have informed their lives up to this point. From the loss of frontman Max Lajoie’s parents, to anxieties and self-doubt, Desertion reopens old wounds and examines just how they can change a life over time. 

Opening track Ashen Grey propels you into the album with the driving drums and fast guitars that characterise Desertion’s sound. The short track follows into Deafening Calls, which recalls Lajoie’s experience being called out of class and told of his father’s suicide. Big guitars and melodic verses set the scene, and the album pans out looking back on the series of events that followed this moment. This offers an interesting conceptual lens through which the album operates, and carries you through the album’s emotional ruminations, ensuring that they are the primary takeaway. 

Tragedy informs each corner of Desertion, but always from a perspective of looking back on it. SPITE HOUSE contemplate the ways in which each tragedy has informed moments of their lives, with songs like Desert poignantly and painstakingly screaming out “i grew up 16 years in a single day” and the admittance of needing to trust people more that punctuates Tied To The Flow. The second major tragedy is marked in the middle of the album, as the track 10 Days fast forwards 10 years to Lajoie’s mother’s cancer diagnosis and successive death. The track gradually builds out to an explosive catharsis – a pattern that most tracks on the album follow. 

This pattern is broken in moments like on Down The Drain where SPITE HOUSE develop a hook between the guitars and drums that propels the song forwards. The track takes on a snappier pace, and establishes a punchiness that offers an edge to the more melodic sound. Equally, Please Know is one of the more unique moments on the album, hitting on the nostalgic 90s punk undercurrent with snappier bass lines. 

A lot of Desertion, however, operates on the same level. The second half of the album finds the same big guitars and punchy drum lines filling out the contemplative lyrics. Tracks like Stale Change and Midway deal with anxieties and doubt, ruminating on the choice to grow. For SPITE HOUSE, outpouring and catharsis comes first, offering some poignant moments that will stop you in your tracks. 

As the final call out of “will i ever heal completely?” on Safe Haven rings and explodes into a cathartic conclusion, it is clear that for SPITE HOUSE this album is about confronting all that has lingered from tragedy and accepting that it may continue to haunt them. The album often at times stays on one level sonically, but it is snappy enough in length not to feel too weighed down by its own similarity. It is in its emotional perspective and reflections that SPITE HOUSE show glimmers of doing something special on Desertion.

Rating: 7/10

Desertion is out now via Pure Noise Records. 

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