ALBUM REVIEW: Haunted Visions – Pledge

Portugal’s PLEDGE have waited some time to share their debut full-length Haunted Visions with the world. Recorded way back in December 2019, a certain global pandemic threw quite the spanner in the works for the five-piece. Finally though, here it is: 36 minutes of passionate, emotional post-hardcore which pulls from a wide range of influences. Was it worth the wait?

For starters, Haunted Visions is a record that’s hard to pigeonhole. As mentioned, post-hardcore probably sums it up best, but that’s a genre which requires boundary pushing more or less by definition. This is something PLEDGE throw themselves into confidently right off the bat. Opener Invisible Fires may even have listeners checking they’ve hit play on the right thing. It takes the form of a pulsating electronic intro, with Blade Runner-esque sci-fi synths adding a grand sense of atmosphere. It’s a brave way to start the record, and a move the band pull off comfortably.

After this, PLEDGE kick into perhaps more of what you might expect for second track Sudden Urge. This soon highlights one of the central features of Haunted Visions: its hefty, swaggering riffs. Again, these are unlikely to be the first thing you think of when it comes to post-hardcore, but there’s no question the band’s guitar duo of Hugo Martins and Vasco Reis have this down to a tee. Their work is even more impressive on third track Waves Of Chaos – a hard-hitting and definite album highlight. Multiple examples follow as the record progresses, drawing comparisons to CONVERGE and even MASTODON with a perhaps surprising regularity.

The riffs aren’t the only stand-out on Haunted Visions. PLEDGE’s vocalist Sofia Magalhães also regularly and forcefully grabs the spotlight with a versatile and varied performance. Over the record’s ten tracks, she opts for a mix of torturous shrieks, melodic cleans, typical hardcore shouts and more. Fourth track The Great In-Betweeness even sees her lean into more haunting ethereal territory for a moment towards its end. Often, these varied styles are double-tracked for a unique juxtaposition. Most crucial of all however is that Magalhães imbues whatever style she chooses at any given time with a real and bristling passion. It’s this which lends the record much of its emotional weight, as well as a near-relentless intensity.

Another key feature of Haunted Visions is heard in PLEDGE‘s solid command of dynamics. Tracks like the already-mentioned Sudden Urge and The Great In-Betweeness show hints of this, but surely the best example of all is the album’s sixth track Wrong Planet Syndrome. Here, the more electronic leanings of the opener return at first before the band kick into a moody, despondent verse. Eruptions into more ferocious fare soon follow, with the track growing in intensity as it goes on. It makes for another firm highlight, ending with a final 30-ish seconds of simple, hypnotic riffing.

If anything, it might have been cool to see PLEDGE lean even further into these dynamic elements for the album’s later tracks. There is still an ebb and flow here, but this isn’t as pronounced as it perhaps could’ve been. That’s a minor criticism though, and there is still a real quality right to the very end. Seventh track Today I Choose Life is one of the record’s more violent cuts, with weighty riffing and a significant screamo touch in particular. The same is true of ninth track We All Die Alone, this time with hints of noise rock thrown in for good measure. After that, Ocean’s Depth brings things to a close in quite usual post-hardcore fare which gradually descends into distorted noise.

The answer to whether Haunted Visions was worth the wait is a resounding ‘yes’. This is a truly impressive debut from a band with just a few years under their belt. The influences are diverse, the energy and ferocity are high, and the quality is always solid. Most of all, it feels like this is just the beginning for PLEDGE. If they go away and hone their craft even more before their next record, it’s not unreasonable to think they could sit pretty comfortably alongside some of the best post-hardcore bands of the past couple of decades.

Rating: 8/10

Haunted Visions is out now via Raging Planet Records.

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