After touring heavily in 2012, Touché Amoré and Pianos Become The Teeth begin the year with a taste of what is to come with this split single via Deathwish and Topshelf Records. If (somehow) you haven’t heard either of them before, consider this a resolute introduction.
Touché Amoré fire off with a song that’s been a staple part of their live set for the best part of a year, ‘Gravity, Metaphorically’, and is concrete evidence that they’re, still, only getting better. After a battering first half, the band breaks to a lonesome guitar, before building to a tearing crescendo to finish with the pounding lyric “At Least I Tried”. The production is not quite the clean-cut affair of their previous output, but does have a certain rawness alluding to the desperation the track portrays.
Where some outside of the die-hard screamo community might have criticised PBTT for a lack of vocal variation in the past, on this track, ‘Hiding’, they’ve got all of that by the bucket-load. From the first clean singing of Kyle Durfey’s tender lyrics and quivering voice, right the way through to clenched screams and mixtures of everything in between. The rest of the band support him solidly and overall it seems like exactly the right direction they needed to take. It’s hard to see them doing it any better, would it be cheeky to hope they do?
This has got to be one of the split realease of the year. One which showcases two artists refining their craft even further than before, offering you two songs which could arguably be their most emotionally hard-hitting recordings to date.
JAMES FOX