Holding Absence - The Greatest Mistake Of My Life
To paraphrase Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan, what’s post-hardcore? To me, it is the angular, aggressive, cathartic and challenging music from the likes of Fugazi, Big Black, Girls Against Boys or (the unfortunately named but amazing) Bitch Magnet. But it has moved on in the last 20 years or so, with the tag being attached to music that owes more to melodic power metal than the true progenitors of the genre. What is labelled as post-hardcore today is undeniably anthemic and can be dramatically entertaining live but most of the studio releases just leave me cold.
Taking their cues from the likes of My Chemical Romance and Avenged Sevenfold, Cardiff’s Holding Absence are great at what they do. They can play, they write decent tunes and these songs will go down a storm with their fans when they hit the road. There is just nothing here that grabs and holds my attention.
Melding pop nous, melodies and heaviness to glorious effect, Nomoreroses is a standout. In Circles is a pop song overlaid with post-rock guitars, which is a good thing. The rest? Well, they are soaring, melodic and heavy but just make me think of early Coldplay or Keane playing metal.
In these times, I don’t wanna be negative about this. It isn’t at all bad, it just isn’t for me.
5/10
