Middling
Photo Cred 📷 : @cmoyerphotography
My heart swells whenever a new screamo band pops up. Life can be jading, an incessant march of not having your joys met or cultivated as we all really just try to get by however we can. So when I see a younger band continuing to release music, book shows, support others in the scene and cultivate their sound, well it just makes my dusty old heart glow a bit. Middling hail from Ohio, a place that once hosted more than a few fantastic screamo bands (2049 anyone?) but has gone a bit more quiet in recent years.
However that doesn’t seem to be the case for much longer, and with Middling’s latest EP “Tore My Heart Out”, they’re doing the work to put their state back in the scene zeitgeist. Opener “20 Oz Gas Station Coffee” wastes no time kicking off with twangy, frantic riffs and tight in-the-pocket blast beats, as hoarsely screamed & shouted vocals all fuse into a track that sounds to me like Merchant Ships meets At the Gates. “Take what you want from me” opens with a tasteful set of licks played on top of each other while a synth organ coasts softly in the background, grounding the melancholy in an 80s aesthetic juxtaposed against bleakly painted lyrics like You wrapped your hands around my neck and I said / Take what you want from me delivered by Touché Amoré styled vocals. Closer “I Think I Tore My Heart Out” simmers and explodes with intense noodling and spoken word delivery against quick syncopated drumming as the anguish of loss is presented in plain as day, with very little window dressing. An earnest and straightforward delivery couched in emotionally chaotic melodies before crescendoing into layered gang vocals closing out the track to leave you with empty silence of loss.
Middling are concocting catchy, clean and occasionally out-of-left-field type screamo. Seeing where they've come from their earlier demos is leaving me with both a feeling of pride and genuine excitement as I watch them build their scene and their sound into something that I believe we can all get behind. We look forward to where they go from here and hope to hear more in the new year.
Check out their Bandcamp here : Middling
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
12/05/22
