Review Summary: Rules of Engagement 101.
How do some bands manage to create such a tangible sense of engagement while so many others fall flat? What exactly are the qualities of music that create an engaging sound in the first place? And can these qualities be reduced down to reliable formulas and bottled up for mass production—something that can be easily tapped into to ensure algorithmic success? Clearly it’s not that simple. The sheer amount of acts that fail to get my blood pumping
at all would prove otherwise. So what makes No Cure’s new EP stand out from the pack? When I think of my favourite heavy releases of the past few years, they almost all have these things in common: tonal diversity across the board, riff variety, and a plethora of left-hook tempo and drum pattern changes all packed into a series of shotgun blasts. No Cure delivers on these qualities. Got it.
I Hope I Die Here springs to life with a visceral aggression, leaping through the speakers and throttling the listener by the throat with a simple focus; crank the contrast, cut the fat. Wicked death metal leads and grinding blast beats collide like semi-trucks into pinch harmonic breakdowns and four-on-the-floor tom grooves that would make even the sturdiest of TIHC stage potatoes bust out a ten-point dive. The production on this record has some serious bite to it as well, making No Cure one of the few bands that actually deserves a spiky font (seriously). No Cure accommodates both the long and short haired crowds here by whipping out a variety of metal and punk influences, and this dogma boils over into their vocal approach as well, which brings a huge value of entertainment to an already solid foundation of metallic bliss. There are features on every single track here, sometimes multiple. I know you just rolled your eyes, but throwing so many different personalities and expressions of anger into the spotlight—everything from guttural pig squeals to classic hardcore gang vocal chants—just adds another layer of spice to the experience that makes
I Hope I Die Here feel like a real hardcore spectacle. This record throws something new in your face every 10 seconds and is constantly upping the ante, never giving you the chance to doze off or second guess your decision to hit play. I don’t even need to highlight any specific tracks, because they all essentially achieve the same goal from a different angle—eight short-fused explosions of dopamine and catchy riffs.
Back to the qualities of engagement, I do really try to avoid getting into any sort of “meta analysis” in reviews, but when you come across a piece of art so good that it makes you want to understand
why, I think it’s worth noting. On the surface, there isn’t anything overtly unique about No Cure’s approach to metallic hardcore, but it’s the way in which they pull these elements together into such a tight package that turns
I Hope I Die Here into a record that punches way above its weight class. Whatever the secret formula is, these Alabama Straight Edge demons have boiled it down to a science without losing any shred of creative soul, and I believe it takes a hell of a lot of intention and focus to deliver something like that. Something most bands couldn’t even be bothered to try. Time to start taking notes.
