Review Summary: 39 minutes of staring into the near-perfect abyss
Soul Glo—a Philadelphia hardcore punk band that formed in 2014—stands out for a few reasons. First, they're a predominantly Black band in a punk scene traditionally (and currently) dominated by white artists. And second, calling them "hardcore punk" doesn't really do their sound justice, with songs across their catalog that draw from emo/screamo, deathcore, industrial hip-hop, and more. On Diaspora Problems, Soul Glo's first major-label release with Epitaph Records, all these sounds come together in an absolutely punishing assault on the senses.
Throughout the album, frontman Pierce Jordan delivers his vocals with such a raw, frantic energy, that the lyrics initially come across as just unintelligible gibberish. Even with the lyrics pulled up, it's easy to lose track of what he's saying. But once I had time to absorb the messaging here, I found the lyricism to be very sharp. Throughout the record, Jordan delivers biting and incisive lines, and nowhere is this brutal wordplay matched more perfectly with the musical intensity than on "Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)." Jordan gives a dark look inside the depressed desperation he exists in with the line "Can I exist in the love of my own decisions? / Can I hold my own hand under my weighted blanket?" In the most powerful moment on the album, his shrieks of "Who gon' beat my ass?" and "Can I live?" simultaneously come across as a defiant challenge and a frightened plea.
The other thing about this album is it is **heavy.** I've been listening to metal and everything metal-adjacent since I was 13, and I don't think I've heard many albums heavier than this. From the immediate auditory assault of "GODBLESSYALLREALGOOD" to the grimy deathcore growls that close out the track "F****d Up If True," this album is a non-stop rollercoaster ride that manages not to lose an ounce of its intensity over all 12 tracks. Just when the hardcore sound starts to wear out, the band throws in hip-hop influences to keep things fresh ("Driponomics," "Spiritual Level of Gang ***").
In terms of weak points, it's hard to find many. Jordan's screaming can sound a bit cartoonish at first, but it didn't take me that long to get over it. Also, some songs are played with such face-melting frenetic energy that the impact can be somewhat diluted. But here's the real downside here: This album is 39 straight minutes of staring into the abyss, and that's not a small task. The music is nearly perfect in its unflinching brutality, but the worldview here is so dark, so hopeless, and so filled with violent rage that it will probably leave you feeling off-kilter by the end of it. When people ask me what I think are the best albums of 2022, Diaspora Problems will inevitably make the list. But will I actively recommend it to most of my friends and family? Probably not. It's hard to come away from this album unscathed.
