With anger becoming the emotional currency of the world today, it only makes sense to see a resurgence of hardcore. Only Constant (Convulse) the full-length debut from this New Jersey band, Gel, finds the quintet twisting the style of the early Hardcore vomited forth by The Plasmatics and GISM into their own sound that is re-imagined for a younger generation. The band’s sharp-edged twin guitar aggression is mixed with the drive-of-rock attitude.
Most of the songs come in under the two-minute mark, with their drummer calling the shots when it comes to nuance. This is displayed in songs like ‘Attainable’, where the expressive nature of punk rides as a thrashing groove amid the guitar’s sonic layers. This fine-tuned touch helps keep things interesting, allowing you to leave this album on for repeat listens, rather than just having your eardrums battered.
Samantha Kaiser‘s coarse snarl colors the songs with a singular shade of angry red. This forces the guitarist to carry the melodic weight, but her delivery might resonate with fans of extreme metal genres used to screams and growls, being another static texture rather than the focal point. The drummer can’t get enough praise as their playing is pretty spectacular. Sure, you gotta have a good drummer to make it as a punk band, but they are pretty tasteful considering the battery of sound this album hits you with, thanks to a crisp organic production that creates a live feel without sounding like the band just used room mics in their rehearsal space, the guitars are crisp and powerful.
The album typically runs you over with its momentum, but there are moments where they slow down, like the song ‘Dicey’’ which shows another side of the band as they sample voicemails from their fans to serve as the song’s narrative. The otherwise single-minded aggression that is the fuel in this band’s tank, does create a uniformity of sound This can be a pitfall for the average hardcore punk band, but Kaiser’s attitude and personality permeates the songs even amid her larynx-grinding fury. The need for speed does not keep the riffs from being hooky. Unlike say Turnstile, who experimented with the formula of hardcore until reaching an infectious level of accessibility, the Jersey punks only sprinkle ambiance into the fray with no attempt to offer commercial compromises.
Generally, when it comes to my personal tastes, hardcore / punk bands need to bring a darker mood to win me over. Gel is a band that proves to be an exception to this as the apocalyptic feel of their songs stomp with a stark enough disdain to resonate with me and earn repeat listens. After all, who cares how punk a band is if they are not writing songs that elicit repeat listens?
These songs are explosive enough to satisfy fans of old-school hardcore – they do not rely on stomping break downs, but get the blood going as rabid anthems of anguish. They do not cross over into metal, aside from the almost thrash-like scowl of Kaiser’s voice, yet I think punk-leaning metal heads will find a great deal of common ground in the middle finger vibes this band waves as their sonic banner.
As the world around us grows more confrontational an album like Only Constant carries the consoling slap in the face we need.
Buy the album here:
https://gelhc.bandcamp.com/album/only-constant
8 / 10
WIL CIFER