You re not hardcore full#

Instead, itвЂ™s Gulch holding a groove, stretching out, and staring straight into the abyss. GulchвЂ™s take on вЂњSin In My HeartвЂќ doesnвЂ™t sound like Siouxsie, but it doesnвЂ™t sound like any other Gulch song, either. Hardcore bands donвЂ™t usually cover songs like вЂњSin In My Heart.вЂќ Hardcore bands usually just cover other hardcore bands. If you can make it through the hail of the first seven songs, you get a stomach-lurching cover of the 1981 Siouxie And The Banshees song вЂњSin In My Heart,вЂќ a sign that weвЂ™re only just starting to understand how heavy Gulch can be. Shirley makes it sound huge without losing its overpowering stench. Gulch recorded the album live-to-tape, keeping things urgent and immediate, with the Deafheaven/Jeff Rosenstock producer Jack Shirley. Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress is a frantic storm of elbows, and if youвЂ™re not looking for that, youвЂ™re going to be actively repulsed. You have to dive in and immerse yourself. You canвЂ™t give Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress a casual listen. ItвЂ™s the kind of record that captures your imagination. Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress is probably the best hardcore album of 2020 thus far. You likely canвЂ™t understand a word that Morrow is screaming, but itвЂ™s not that surprising to learn his lyrics are about guilt and anxiety and fear, or that heвЂ™s using bodily-fluid imagery to get that across: вЂњSwallowed secretion, spreading the infection/ FillingвЂ…the void of the lungs/ Eyes hazing over, howling for the end/ The flesh becomes one with true fear.вЂќ

Their riffs are hard and brutal, but they always keep you off-kilter, simply by never sticking around long enough to become comforting or even satisfying. The band never grooves instead, they lurch chaotically from one time signature to the next.

They take cues from all the grimiest and most off-putting genres of aggressive guitar-based music: Powerviolence, death metal, grindcore, crust. It doesnвЂ™t sound like traditional hardcore, but it doesnвЂ™t sound like anything else, either. ItвЂ™s a writhing, seething, spitting beast of an album. Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress, GulchвЂ™s debut LP, is all of 16 minutes long. TheyвЂ™ve done it, in a way, by being harder than anyone else. TheyвЂ™ve become the rare hardcore band that can find audiences outside of hardcore without actively courting those audiences at all.

TheyвЂ™ve got mystique and energy and charisma, and theyвЂ™ve also got videos that you can watch without getting bored.Д«ut now that their album is out, itвЂ™s clear that Gulch are something more than a viral sensation.

You re not hardcore full#

In an era when people watch full videos of hardcore sets on YouTube - especially in an era when those sets arenвЂ™t happening in real life and you can only watch them on YouTube - Gulch might be the perfect band. Frontman Elliot Morrow always looks like heвЂ™s having fun, but he also looks like he will kill you. TheyвЂ™re freaky-looking and intense and brutal. The thinking was: If you like Gulch so much, go mosh to Gulch.)Д®ven before Gulch released their debut album last month, the band was a topic of a whole lot of conversation. When Gulch played FloridaвЂ™s FYA Fest in January, someone filmed people waiting in line for Gulch merch while Gulch played and it became a whole thing online. The clothes inevitably sell out as soon as they show up on the internet, and people resell them online for crazy markups. The band sells unique gear - rugby shirts, crewnecks, things with cartoon characters on them. And yet merch scarcity has become a running theme for Gulch.