pulses. speak less

Listen to pulses.' ridiculously good post-hardcore album 'Speak Less'

pulses.
photo via Bandcamp

I had not previously been familiar with the Virginia post-hardcore band pulses., but the Buffalo post-hardcore band p.s.you’redead (whose new split with Mikau is awesome) just tweeted about the new album pulses. put out today and wrote “Holy shit this rips,” so I listened, and holy shit, this rips. They’ve been around since 2016 and have put out a bunch of records (including the full-length Speak It Into Existence less than a year ago), so I’m not fully sure how this new album Speak Less compares to the rest of their discography but I do know that I’ve been loving it since the moment I clicked play.

It’s an in-your-face blend of post-hardcore and metalcore that whips by (12 of its 13 songs are under two minutes, many of them are under one minute) and it interjects the heavy, screamy stuff with bright mathy/tech-y leads and bursts of clean vocals that recall the mid 2000s heyday of The Fall of Troy. (They tag themselves “swancore,” which The Fall of Troy sort of paved the way for.) They also remind me of about half the bands on the Ferret and Trustkill rosters in the early 2000s, and they also find time for string-laden acoustic emo (“I Meant It”) and a randomly inserted Hot Topic pop punk song (“As A Treat”). If you liked the balance between mall-punk sugar and metallic fury on the new For Your Health album, you’ll like this too. Stream it below.

pulses. speak less

15 Albums That Defined the 2000s Post-Hardcore Boom

Categories: