Recommended for fans of: Shai Hulud, Earth Crisis, Heaven Shall Burn
The end of another month means it’s time for another discography deep-dive, which this time focusses on the work of Metallic Hardcore marauders ClearXCut.
Unsurprisingly for a band who describe themselves as “a vegan, straight-edge collective” (one whose shifting line-up over the years has included various members of King Apathy, Heaven Shall Burn, and Implore, among others) the group have no problem proclaiming their beliefs and ideals up front, with songs about everything from anarchism to addiction to animal liberation to all-out class-war.
But, as the band have been keen to stress in various interviews over the years, their primary purpose as a group is not to preach or pass judgement – even though they are just as willing to be critical of the hypocrisy and toxicity present in their own scene as they are the problems of the wider world – but to engage and inspire others through both their actions and their art.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to agree with the message – I’m neither vegan nor straight-edge myself, but I still find the band’s idealism and integrity inspiring – to enjoy the music on its own terms, and so… without further ado… let’s get to it, shall we?
2019 – FOR THE WILD AT HEART KEPT IN CAGES
The band’s debut album definitely has a bit more of their Punk/Hardcore influence on display, as you can immediately hear during the urgent, powerfully melodic (and subtly Shai Hulud-esque) strains of opener “Unison”, whereas the more atmospheric “A Shadow Falls Across the Ravaged Land” (whose crunchier riffing style contrasts nicely with the song’s keening melodies) at times recall a harsher, heavier version of Belgian Post-Metal punks Brutus.
With its surging bursts of blastbeats (hinting at the band’s future evolution), “Disgust” sits somewhere between the melancholy majesty of latter-day Downfall of Gaia (a term actually referenced directly in the lyrics, in a telling coincidence) and the firebrand energy of early Thrice, while incredibly hooky mid-album highlight “The Keys to the Cages” fuses all these previously mentioned elements and influences into a singular song whose central refrain (“We won’t fight for bigger cages, we will smash them all“) serves as perhaps the group’s defining statement (thus far).
That doesn’t mean, however, that the remaining three tracks can (or should) just be ignored, especially when ClearXCut amp up both the vengeful venom and introspective intensity on “Break the Silence” and “Behold the Curse” (with the former in particular managing to be both vicious yet vulnerable, angry but anthemic, all at the same time).
Closing with strident riffs, sombre melodies, and stirring vocals (including some extremely effective, and affecting, gang-shouts) of “Collapse” (which ends up landing not too far away from some of Harakiri For The Sky‘s more Hardcore-inspired stuff) For the Wild at Heart Kept in Cages ends with a simple question – “What will you do with the time given to you?” – which perhaps helps us understand just why ClearXCut have chosen to take a stand with both their music and the message(s) it contains.
2022 – SONGS OF DESIRE ARMED
From the moment that the first crashing chord of “The Sky Ablaze” kicks in you can immediately hear the changes in ClearXCut‘s sound this time around – darker, heavier, and more metallic, with a new vocal approach more reminiscent of Earth Crisis‘s Karl Buechner, the band sound bigger and stronger than ever, and whatever they may have lost in terms of punky vigour they’re more than made up for in sheer power.
They certainly haven’t abandoned melody either, as the moody intro and spikily melodic, Heaven Shall Burn-ish riffs of “Pariah” swiftly prove, nor are they afraid to pick up the pace, as the up-tempo gallop and hook-laden guitars of “A Life of Your Own” demonstrate in turn, blurring the line between what constitutes “Metallic Hardcore” and what counts as “Metalcore” without a care for artificial genre-boundaries or stylistic restrictions.
The unashamedly catchy chug and groove of “The Seeds of Hope” serves as a perfect canvas for the band’s idealistic message of unity and community which – in lesser hands (and in the hands of lesser bands) – could easily come across as trite and cliched and yet, due to the passion and conviction behind their delivery, I find myself truly wanting to believe that “Finally as an old world ends, equal people can meet as friends“.
Similarly, “Fortress” combines some heavyweight, All Out War style aggro vibes with a message of resistance, resilience, and self-reliance that rings all the more true due to song’s visceral vocal performance, while the moodily menacing, broodingly belligerent “My Anchor” sticks to a slower, stompier tempo that allows the song’s rhythmic, staccato riffs and ringing melodic refrains that little more time to breathe.
Picking up the pace one last time, the closing title-track, “A Song of Desire Armed”, resurrects some of the punkier energy from their debut and cleverly combines it with both the band’s newfound harder edge and some subtle, Post-Metal-ish, atmospheric touches, ultimately concluding with a gorgeous acoustic outro that ends things on an unexpectedly solemn and reflective note.
2024 – AGE OF GRIEF
The band’s third album is certainly their harshest and heaviest yet, and while their courage and conviction remains undimmed, you can tell that ClearXCut were in a much darker headspace when writing it… which opener “The Seventh Seal” swiftly affirms with its denser, more metallic riffs, gnarlier, snarlier vocals, and lyrics like “The time is up, it’s too late to redeem ourselves, the seventh seal is open to embrace the end“.
And while few would argue against the assertion that a song like “Burial Shroud” definitely leans more towards the heavier end of the Metalcore spectrum, they also clearly haven’t abandoned their roots, as the gloom-laden grooves and adrenaline-fuelled gallop of “Against Leviathan” definitely contains more than a few hints of their Crust influences, while “Unwritten” errs more strongly towards the Melodic/Metallic Hardcore side of things.
And then there’s the pissed-off, pugilistic, Merauder-esque “Collecting Scars”, which sounds significantly angrier, and more ferociously focussed (both musically and vocally), than the neutered nihilism and artificial angst that passes for the majority of mainstream Metalcore (whatever that word even means) these days.
With “Privilege” the band then put some extra emphasis on their more emotive and atmospheric side (especially during the song’s soothingly sombre second half), before the raging “Putrefaction” – a truly blistering attack on the rise of “the same old bigotries” – ups the ante with an extra dose of extremity and intensity combining the martial assault of Whatever It May Take-era Heaven Shall Burn with the melodic fire of early Dödsrit.
Concluding with the cathartic combo of “Ghosts of the Past” and the forlorn “The Eternal Demise” – which, in their desolately melodic (at times almost doomy) approach, recall the dearly-departed King Apathy – Age of Grief is the sound of a band who, even in an age of increasing hardship and heartache, want you to know you should never lose hope.