As a genre fundamentally orientated towards energy, the manner in which hardcore employs dynamics has always interested me. The only manipulation of tempo and intensity that it really needs is that between fast and faster, hard and harder. However, the attention to detail that most bands of the new millennium put into structure and pacing went far beyond the genre’s bare necessities and raised it to another level. The tendency to build (or, more often, explode) into periods of cathartic release evokes the appeal of post-rock, and it is no surprise that many bands found great success by exploring the structural vocabulary associated with this genre. Scene legends such as Circle Takes the Square, Envy and City of Caterpillar mastered this dimension of hardcore over a decade ago. Hell, even Refused, the perennially overrated would-be godfathers of 21st century hardcore, knew a thing or two about using dynamics to mess with their listeners.
Now, return to the present and all this is old, old news. The fusion of hardcore and post-rock has become stagnant and unimaginative, and the ultra-accessible Californian ‘fast food’ hardcore bands of the Dance Gavin Dance/A Lot Like Birds/Hail the Sun cohort have packaged dynamic play into much tracks much more concise and digestible than the towering opuses of the earlier generation (think ‘Kill the Switch’ and ‘A Will Remains In The Ashes’). This is all well and good, but the most successful experimentation within hardcore seems largely directed towards a polished, hooky fusion of every hook and build-up under the sun, revolving around vocal and guitar performances of near-extravagant technicality. These bands deserve their success, but they still beg a significant question: where is the raw, epic scope that used to give experimental hardcore such a powerful edge?
Bologna’s answer seems to be Marnero; underground heroes, masters of all things dynamic and innovators whose take on hardcore is absolutely relevant and important to today’s scene. Il Sopravvissuto is a hard-hitting and genuinely refreshing hardcore album that benefits from clever structuring, tight pacing and a fantastically doomy aesthetic. It’s the second instalment of their
Trilogia del Fallimento (Ruinous Trilogy) and, as such, shipwreck, survival, death, desperation and disorientation are the order of the day. All five themes are gloriously overt and presented convincingly from start to finish.
When Il Sopravvisuto hits, it hits hard –
Come se non ci fosse un domani (which cheerily translates as ‘As If There Were No Tomorrow’) is a ferocious opener, and both
(Che non sono mai stato) and
Rotta Irreparabile blow up like depth charges over the course of the album. These three tracks are heavy as hell all the way through, and when you take them out of the picture and consider that two of the remaining tracks are interludes, you are left with just three –
Non sono più il ghepardo di una volta,
Il porto delle illusioni and
Zonguldak. These three tracks are unmistakably the core of the album and epitomise the strengths of Marnero’s brand of hardcore.
As the longest and most progressive track on the album,
Il porto delle illusioni might appear to have the most to say on the band’s sound. However, although the twists and turns in that song are many (and excellent), it is
Non sono più il ghepardo di una volta that steals the show and displays Marnero at their finest. The level of tension generated in this track has to be heard to be believed, and the chaos into which it unfolds is absolutely gut-wrenching. This song is essential listening and recommended as the first port of call to anyone vaguely interested in this album. On the other hand, the closer
Zonguldak is a gloomy outing of despair that captures a satisfyingly epic sense of release, thanks in no small part to the beautiful female vocals that make a surprise appearance at the start. The song builds slowly and purposefully into a bleak collapse that leaves the listener’s expectations hanging in the air.
In just over half an hour, Marnero explore hardcore as daringly and with many twists and turns as the listener can bear, and the result is a well-rounded package that is conceptually and musically epic and incredibly well-paced. With the final instalment of their trilogy,
La Malora, sailing over the horizon as I write this, this band is one to watch and has the potential to go as far as they want.
