Review Summary: An album that displays a perfection of the DC hardcore/Dischord Record style that wasn’t made by a band named Fugazi.
Lurid Traversal of Route 7 has been described as the most intense Dischord Records release ever and while I can’t claim to have heard every Dischord release I can say that this album does not lack in the intensity department. From the second the guitars join the interlocking drum and bass groove in
Distant you know you’re in for one hell of a ride that doesn’t let up until the final cathartic screams in
Cuts Like Drugs .
Lurid Traversal of Route 7 is powerful and youthful yet it conveys such a level of emotional maturity. The album works as a coherent whole and dynamics play they’re part in the very way the tracks are ordered and because of this the album comes across as quite reserved at times but it’s always pulling you towards a crescendo. In regards to the track layout the album begins with arguable the most violent track on the album,
Distant , and the following tracks keeps pummeling you drilling thick DC-style hardcore riffs into your head until you get to
Route 7 , which is a calm instrumental that has the sound of crickets chirping played under a beautiful guitar and bass melody. From there the album then slowly builds up in intensity track by track until the album reaches its ultimate catharsis on
Cuts Like Drugs .
Musically
Hoover plays a traditional mid-tempo DC Hardcore style with drums and bass providing the core to every song while thick guitar riffs and anguished vocals complete the sound. Hoover has three different people do vocals throughout the album, not all at the same time, this isn’t Hot Cross or Circle Takes The Square, and while none of them are distinctly different it does provide for some variety in the vocals. You won’t be listening to the same shouts, screams and whispers for the entire album. Every track is distinct and complete on it’s own and there isn’t a boring track on the album. Some standout examples include the faster tempo aggression of
Distant and
Pretender , the soft to heavy build-ups in
Electrolux and
Cuts Like Drugs , the former featuring a noise-esque freak-out.
Cable has trumpet playing in the background as a primary element in the song and uses that to break off into a jazzy section towards the end of the song.
Father has one of the most addicting bass lines ever and
Letter is almost six minutes of pure anguish.
Sure it would be easy to pass off
Hoover as just another post-hardcore band in the vein of Fugazi but that would be to miss out on one of the most intense yet mature and dynamic albums to come from the DC scene. A must hear album if you're into post-hardcore.
