EP REVIEW: Liminal – Apostle

The press notes for APOSTLE’s new EP promise a lot: shoegaze, grindcore, atmospheric black metal, melodic hardcore… and apparently they’re gonna squeeze all this into just 16-and-a-half minutes. Perhaps the trio’s Bandcamp bio covers it slightly more succinctly – “blackened and atmospheric chaotic hardcore” – but either way the point is that Liminal is an ambitious record that may be short on time but is by no means short on ideas, and at no point lacking in execution.

To be fair, there is some precedent to suggest that the disparate styles mentioned above would work well together. References to bands like BIRDS IN ROW and CULT LEADER make a lot of sense here, as would comparisons to the likes of CONVERGE or OATHBREAKER or FULL OF HELL or indeed a number of others who have found hardcore’s outermost edges and then pushed from there. With this in mind, APOSTLE may score a few less points for outright innovation than such deservedly revered names, but that they are not embarrassingly dwarfed by any of them in sonic terms should be enough to sell Liminal to plenty of readers without another word.

But to offer a few more for the sake of those who still need convincing – and of course the word counts we set ourselves here at Distorted Sound – Liminal is utterly enrapturing, its savagery only heightened by the occasional moments of quiet and sparsity like that in third track Starve which comes in just as its almost formless blasting dissonance teeters on the edge of too much. A bleak atmosphere ties everything together, as does a slight rawness to the production of Connor Ray, and there’s also a thematic heaviness evidenced from the outset as opener Sulk samples the poet John Berryman, who famously struggled with depression and ultimately took his own life in January 1972.

Pain and the aforementioned Starve are subsequently tied together by a quote of “Where does depression hurt? Everywhere / Who does depression hurt? Everyone” which runs out of one track and into the next, while the screams of guitarist and vocalist Murice White heighten the sense of desperation and anguish at every turn. It all comes to a head super quickly in the form of closer Wrung, this one featuring a late and welcome inclusion of melodic vocals – chant-like in their repetition of the line “I feel so alone” – before ending with a reading of If I Could Tell You by W. H. Auden; a poem which reflects on the relentless passage of time and the unpredictability of life, it feels deeply fitting with the overall despondency and unsettledness of the record.

Ultimately APOSTLE have chosen quite a natural vehicle for conveying feelings of pain and despair – it is not often easy to discern much else from blast beats and screaming and angular, dissonant guitar work – but they have nonetheless done so eloquently and with some nuance. Liminal is a vicious little EP that is well worth the repeated listens its runtime makes easy, and while it may not stand completely alone in its field, the bands you’d put it next to are some of the best to ever do it so there really isn’t any cause for complaint here.

Rating: 8/10

Liminal is set for release on December 15th via Terminus Hate City Records.

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