EP REVIEW: Spirals – Glassbone

Built from the ashes of previous bands, GLASSBONE arrived in 2021 courtesy of Paris, France. Just a year after their inception, their debut EP Spirals has arrived and tells you exactly what to expect from them in the future with sections of real potential even if their influences are a bit too prominent.

Currently supporting LANDMVRKS and TEN56 in the UK and Europe, it’s clear from the offset that GLASSBONE already belong to a select scene. They fit in amongst those bands very well and their sound allows them to appeal to several different audiences. Most of it is rooted in the heavier side of metallic hardcore and in that there’s some bleeding through of metalcore and deathcore, largely down to the intensity of the riffs and vocals. 

Accompanying their mosh first ask questions later sound are electronics that usually play their part in the opening of tracks. Setting the tone before the guitars come in and obliterate any subtlety, they’re always a welcome addition to kick off a new song. Fourth track Kingdom also uses the electronics in the breaks between the stop and start riff to give it that cut up and fractured feel. On this occasion, it pushes too far into the CODE ORANGE pool of inspiration – that’s not to say that other bands haven’t done similar things effectively but this track does feel like a lesser CO cut. 

Vocalist Hadrien Bessen is in his harsh vocal register for the majority of the runtime here but there are some moments of variation that are sparingly used very effectively. Aside from some extremely brief clean vocals in Spirals, his other vocals are more spoken. They lurk behind layers of distortion and they work really well alongside the electronics and never overstay their welcome. They’re one of the elements that stand out on the debut as some interesting ideas that’ll be interesting to see develop in future releases.

Spirals has many of the cliché positives and negatives that debut releases often have, but crucially there is an identity here and they’re already good at what they do. There is an individualism starting to shine through; some of it is not fully formed as of yet but that doesn’t result in anything not sounding good, it just still has room to grow into something bigger and better than the current sum of their influences. Keep an eye out.

Rating: 7/10

Spirals is set for release on May 13th via Blood Blast Distribution.

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