Over the last decade, the realm of punk and post-hardcore has been carried on the shoulders of the scene’s champions of spastic riffs and drilling blast beats: Touché Amoré.
The band is fresh off a two-year hiatus after touring for the release of their previous 2013 triumph, the atmospheric and vibrant, “…Is Survived By.”
In chatting with one of the band’s guitarists, Clayton Stevens, he explained how the time off was exactly what the band needed.
“Personally, it was a really good thing to do,” Stevens said. “We grew up on the road together so it was nice to settle down a little bit and grow a little bit.”
Stevens explained that early on in the band’s career, being on the road was their inspiration, but life got very real during the band’s brief hiatus.
Lead singer Jeremy Bolm lost his mother to cancer on the night of Halloween in 2014. Bolm has a penchant for being confessional in his lyrics—so the only expectation for this album was that it would perhaps turn the vulnerability up to 11.
Bolm doesn’t relent in terms of his unbridled honesty, which is a common thread throughout “Stage Four”—not only lyrically, but also musically, as the band presents an evolved sound ripe with experimentation and maturation.
Those familiar with Touché were accustomed to a band that released 20-minute albums. Until “…Is Survived By,” the band had only hit the three-minute mark once. “Stage Four” is over 35 minutes in length and features six of eleven songs that are well over three minutes—so this is truly a remarkable exploration for the band.
“I really do feel [this album] is a natural evolution,” Stevens said, continuing that “not a lot of it was a conscious thing—our main goal was just to make a dynamic record.” Stevens went on to explain that the members of the band listen to very different kinds of music. He said this makes their creative process more interesting because a lot of their writing is created in the moment—so experimenting with a riff or structure is fun for them.
“New Halloween” starts with the powerful line, “somehow it’s already been a year,” a line that resonates with me specifically because exactly a year ago, I lost my father to cancer—so this album was certainly released at a serendipitous time. But that’s the reality of losing a loved one—life does have to continue, and often, time passes faster than you realize.
Losing a loved one makes you think of the littlest things—flashbacks to the moments you took for granted, immortalizing the things you could’ve said, or simply appreciating the idiosyncrasies of the person you love.
These details make an album live forever. “Stage Four” is full of these details.
The band erupts into “Rapture,” which carries the band’s catchiest chorus to date—one that carries the remorse of feeling selfish for the comfort we can feel when things are going well in our lives amid the struggles of our loved ones.
Yet, the beckoning of the lines, “Like a wave, like the rapture—something you love is gone, someone you love is gone and leaves you fractured.” This was the first moment in the album when I welled up with a few tears. It’s this sort of brutal honesty that makes Bolm such an important voice in music today. The reality of loss is universal, and yet we live so much in our heads that we don’t think to share the struggle of such a loss.
But Bolm brandishes vulnerability as his weapon of choice in a battle that may never end.
“The band exists as a family together, so we are very involved with each other’s lives,” Stevens said in response to the loss of Bolm’s mother, “so we knew that this was going to be a central topic for this album, and we just approached the album being completely honest with ourselves in the moment.”
Touché Amoré is about to hit the road with their old friends in Culture Abuse—a band that released a great new album this year called “Peach,” on 6131 records. The spastic and lively math-rock trio, Tiny Moving Parts, which released its outstanding new album “Celebration” in May on Triple Crown Records, will also support the tour.
“I am really looking for to this tour,” Stevens said. “I’m excited to play some new songs out there. Making an album takes so long that by the time an album is completed we are ready to get out there and play some shows.”
New England fans will get our opportunity to see this tour when it comes to The Met in Pawtucket, RI on Saturday, Oct. 22 and/or The Space in Hamden, CT on Oct. 23. Get your tickets fast, because you will not want to miss this tour.
If you would like the extended version of this article, please go to Typeinstereo.com.