So Concerned
Photo Cred 📸: @nowuintheloop
Some times on here I talk about screamo as a whole. Even though it contains many fascinating subcultures on its own, a unique geography of ideas, particular styles, and special unions outside of itself with other genres, in my eyes it is all one great structure under which many, many, many bands sit. The online blogosphere writers, TikTok web spelunkers are just a few amongst the numerous who often argue this way and that about what is and isn’t sheltered within these hallowed halls. However to me, the feeling, the sound, the influence and history are all crystalized into an idiosyncratic bismuth of what screamo is. With “A Handful of Recipes For Sorrow”, you can hear the architecture of our history, brought into a modern lens.
As soon as the first strums off “Destroy Power, Not People” hit my ears, I knew this album was going to be woven into the fabric of my week, possibly my year. As triumphant yet agony inducing as a track that could’ve fit on a Funeral Diner split back in the day. It begins to swell from quickening drums, guitar and bass to a masterful racket. “Splattered” opens with a moody chord progression, working itself up into a froth of wrist-splitting drum fills, with a melodic rock-to-and-fro riff creating a soft atmosphere for the harshly shrieked vocals to cut into with the repetitious He loves you sinking in further and further each time before the delicious spin of instruments fading out. I loved the melancholic instrumentation and punchy screams that kicked off “2006 Toyota Corolla (Remastered)”. Coupled with the lyrics this track almost takes on a surreal nature, crafting a story of a simple evening lending a hand to a vaguely familiar, if not a touch off-scented, face.
The sweet sweep pluck strum on “The Fine Art of Misandry” has amazing bass textures, while “I’d Like To Thank My Mother” has some of the crunchiest guitar I’ve heard in the genre in quite some time. ‘Compos Mentis” roars forth with heavy breathing and a cacophonous intro that wouldn’t sound amiss on an old Emo Annihilation comp. “Neutered, Spayed” leads with bass, which I’m always a huge fan of, as the rest of the band falls in for a huge, crushing riff swell. Truly, it's the outro that almost breaches metal territory, but reels back into the realms of You and I-esque tones and drumming and with a line like All my clothes smell like you the comparison feels even more apt.
The bouncy riffs on “Next Time U Come Around” work in concerted opposition with the themes of the track. Almost pleading, the vocals howling about how different things will be, once this ill-equipped anxiety leaves and there can be an actual sense of normalcy achieved. “Something You Don’t Know” has this tilted guitar line that is so melodically infectious it has been stuck in my head for a week. Within the song itself a feeling that's present throughout the album of misunderstanding and difficulty relating is given clearer language and space.
“That time me and Jared got a drumset and then went inside Dennys and both ordered grand slammwiches” achieves Algernon levels of comedic (and lengthy) song titling and in classical form, winds up being one of the more intense and pained tracks on the album. I went to the park where we met / rolled up another / and all the things I cannot fathom / come back to haunt me once again. The fact that So Concerned sound like they've been unearthed from the late 90s / early 00s is something I was honestly stunned by. Plenty of great contemporary bands take the pieces and make it new but rarely do you hear something that sounds like a classic era Screamo album but has the modern context clear and present.
The influences worn on "A Handful of Recipes For Sorrow" is both refreshing and deeply nostalgic for a skrampa like yours truly. The surreal, awkward and subtle neurodivergent themes of the album also resonated heavily, and it’s always wonderful to see there be new forms of vulnerability still being explored within the genre.
A Handful of Recipes For Sorrow will be available in physical copies through @self_versed_records on March 4th!
Check out their Bandcamp here: So Concerned
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
02/27/23
