CT metalcore band Boundaries share crushing first single off debut full-length (listen)
Connecticut metalcore wrecking crew Boundaries are following 2019’s killer My Body In Bloom EP with their first full-length album, Your Receding Warmth, on November 13 via Unbeaten Records (pre-order). The album was recorded with producer Randy LeBoeuf (who’s also worked with Every Time I Die, The Acacia Strain, and produced the anticipated new Chamber album), and Randy’s crisp, gut-punching production is perfect for Boundaries’ sound.
The first single is “Carve,” which starts out as bone-crushing metalcore, but there’s more to this song than just straight-up mosh fuel. It’s got a soaring post-metal mid-section and there’s genuine emotion in Matt McDougal’s voice. If you dig Knocked Loose (who Boundaries have opened for) or Chamber or Sanction or other current bands in that realm, you don’t wanna sleep on this. Listen and watch the video below.
Tracklist
1. Is Survived By
2. Fade Away
3. Carve
4. My Strength
5. Get Out
6. Behind the Bend
7. Written and Rephrased
8. I’d Rather Not Say
9. One Moment From Disaster
10. Your Receding Warmth
11. From the Departed, Dear or Otherwise
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Must-Hear Hardcore Albums of 2020 So Far
Gulch – Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress
Rotting Out – Ronin
Drain – California Cursed
Power Alone – Rather Be Alone
Xibalba – Años En Infierno
END – Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face
Year of the Knife – Internal Incarceration
Sharptooth – Transitional Forms
Baltimore's Sharptooth made a name for themselves as one of the brightest new voices in political hardcore with their 2017 debut LP Clever Girl (which, among other things, includes a rager called "Fuck You Donald Trump"), and they're now back with their followup Transitional Forms, which is bigger and better in every way. The band now sounds tighter and heavier and more varied, the production is crisper (this one was produced and mixed by Brian McTernan, Paul Leavitt, and Sharptooth guitarist Lance Donati), and the anger that fuels these songs is even more palpable than it was on Sharptooth's debut. As powerhouse screamer/singer Lauren Kashan puts it, the album tells the "story of my personal struggle with the societal, interpersonal, and internal constructs that have left me feeling small, afraid, broken, and utterly hopeless," and you hear how all of that informs the incisive lyricism on this LP.
Compared to Clever Girl, Sharptooth push their sound to new extremes in a handful of new directions. The nu-ish chugs of "Say Nothing (In The Absence of Content)" find Sharptooth at their heaviest, "Life On The Razor's Edge" finds them at their most atmospheric, and at least a couple songs find them upping the melodicism in interesting ways. "The Gray" belongs in the same lineage of melodic hardcore as bands like Modern Life Is War and Comeback Kid, while "153" sounds like a fresh update on the metalcore-tinged hard rock of mid 2000s Every Time Die, and "Evolution" gets a dash of melodic punk from Anti-Flag frontman Justin Sane's guest spot. The variety of the album keeps you on your toes, while the pure rage and adrenaline that fuels these songs keeps your blood rushing.