ALBUM REVIEW: Not Broken Enough – Catch Your Breath
Who needs therapy when you can just listen to CATCH YOUR BREATH? On this new album, they’re digging deep, opening up and throwing in a few self-reflective gut punches along the way. An album ruminating on a relationship is not exactly revolutionary. However, Not Broken Enough depicts the emotional rollercoaster many are familiar with: heartbreak, rage, regret and a consideration of acceptance. There is something almost confronting about how they express these emotions and thoughts they’re having.
The album opens with Contaminated, which tees up the emotional landscape of what’s to come. It’s airy, atmospheric and loaded with emotion. As an opener, the track explains the origin of the emotions yet to be explored. Despite building around these ebbs and flows, the album stays linear in its storytelling. There is no whiplash or jarring shifts in pacing. A listener can follow the trajectory of what’s happening due to how raw CATCH YOUR BREATH have allowed themselves to be this time around.
Carnivore is a standout track on this album. It’s alive with synths that elevate and drums that ground, all woven through the push and pull of crashing guitars. Vocalist Josh Mowery delivers stunning melismatic runs as he enunciates his frustrations by stretching words across multiple notes. The whole piece feels like the stages of a break-up: anger, frustration, hurt, reflection. Rewind is full of hurt. Ghostly tones engulf a song steeped in reverie and desire, not to fix the relationship, but a wish that it never happened at all.
Mowery describes Control as being for anyone “who’s ever given their whole world to someone, only to realise they’ve accidentally handed over the keys to their own prison”. They manage to make Not Broken Enough a portal into the mind of its protagonist. KAMI KEHOE features on the penultimate track [Gen]inside; her angelic voice complements the dreamy nature of the album’s closer, Hollow Dreams. Furthermore, [Gen]inside feels like a final conversation with the spectre of the other half of the relationship. There are elements of acknowledgement that both parties were imperfect.
Hollow Dreams is the embodiment of closing a book. It opens with a slow, reversed swell, as if entering or exiting a different mindset or dream. There is clarity, as the subconscious heaviness weighing over the album dissipates; there’s room to breathe again, space to catch your breath even. There is even a direct switch-up in sentiments from Rewind, where once there is a wish the relationship never happened, now it’s contemplative, if they could do it all again. From opening with a stinging, Contaminated to closing with an emotionally drained but inquisitive Hollow Dreams, the emotional arc feels complete.
Not Broken Enough feels like confessions of what people wantto say in the midst of a break-up but either hold back or go too far. It’s honest and raw, treading the line of vulnerability and emotional restraint. Likewise, harsher lyrics soften with the levity in the music, while others become stronger with emotional, gritty screams. However, this record has many strong points, but CATCH YOUR BREATH still lacks that signature sound that’s unique to them. Crucially, though, the evolution between now and their 2023 Shame On Me is undeniable. There is a new level of confidence that exudes from this album.
Rating: 7/10
Not Broken Enough is set for release on August 28th via Thriller Records.
Like CATCH YOUR BREATH on Facebook.