Ariadne's Thread
Another Way to Get There

Release Date: 01/24/2025 | Tracklist

Ariadne's Thread is an interesting name for a band. It's stated in mythology that the namesake Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread to help him navigate out of where he was at after he killed the Minotaur, and it connected him to where they began, allowing him to return, and the metaphor has to do with problem solving in a situation where multiple ways of proceeding are correct. It's a little bit like naming your band Occam's Razor, albeit a tad less generic. It's also interesting because when knowing its origins come from Greek mythology, one would surmise that the band plays some sort of power or progressive metal where historical writing is the primary focus; not in this case though, because this band is screamo to the extreme-o, clearly inspired by the likes of Orchid or Jeromes Dream. They're not just screamo, mind you, but they also operate in sort of a mathcore-esque sound not unlike that of The Dillinger Escape Plan.

Another Way to Get There is brief, clocking in at a little over 15 minutes in length, but they say pretty much everything they need to say on this EP, leaving no wasted seconds. "Shallow Water Blackout" opens with a bunch of guitar noise and vocalist Erin Gray screaming her head off in a way not too dissimilar from an opening like Slipknot's "(515)" that feels like a sort of unintentional homage, if not an outright coincidence. "The Life You Thought You Lived" kicks the chaotic blend of mathcore and screamo into high gear, giving the listener a good dose of their aggressive, chaotic sound, just as it was meant to be. The guitars from Peter Cino are roaring, the drums from Dan Cino are stellar, the bass (played by Joshua Ray on the EP) does all it needs to do, and Gray's vocals are extremely impassioned even if they are at times hard to make out due to the mixing; this could be interpreted as a negative, but if anything, this imperfection only adds to the chaos and unsettling feeling. It's not like the classic screamo bands of old had the production truck of, like, Periphery, or whatever other band Tundra is currently daytripping. "Black & Seamless" and lead single "Liminality" (my personal highlight) continue the unsettling atmosphere set in by "The Life You Thought You Lived", as does the closing title track "Another Way to Get There". All this to say, if you're near New Jersey, and you see this band on a local show card, and you're into the hardcore scene, you're likely going to get a banger show.

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3.5 great