Here we have I, Imperfect, the new EP from Pennsylvania hardcore band New Miseries. My personal experience with this band is confined to casually listening to songs from their previous release and having played a show with them once. Through that small sampling I knew that they had something special going for them. Their older material, while still quite good... wasn't nearly as evolved as what I'm hearing on this new release. I could hear the roots of this sound taking hold in the soil, but it hadn't quite yet bore fruit.
This EP carries a sonic weight that few bands are able to capture. The band that comes to mind that most recently caught my attention for having this same quality is New Lows (if you're not already, get familiar). The songs are dissonant all while still existing within the realms of hardcore... but at times very much so push the limits. While dissecting this release, I found my favorite aspect to be the guitars. They are enormous and completely natural in sound. This is something I find that all too often today bands will over-compress their tone to achieve a similarly huge sound but at the cost of sacrificing the organic quality that only a tube amp on the verge of meltdown can create.
The enveloping theme of this collection of songs is a sense of hopelessness. This trait is covered in a grim and vicious delivery that really sets New Miseries apart from most of the others that attempt this style. I truly believe the desperation in both his voice and in the musicianship. It is in this brutal honesty that I find this release to be the most refreshing. As previously mentioned, the bands previous work was very well done... but after seeing their performance I knew that the best was yet to come. This may not yet be their best, but its pretty damned good.
New Miseries 'I, Imperfect' will be out on June 23rd via INSRGNT-[Arts].
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