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If you think post-hardcore/emo is characterised by whinging teens, bad poetry and dressing like a Hot Topic Dracula, then you’d do well to listen to We Never Learned To Live and then work backwards.
Silently… is emotionally, if not always sonically, heavy; intelligent without ever being indulgent, and is inspired by the kind of music that labels like Jade Tree and Dischord specialised in when the term ‘emo’ was a new idea.
Listening to a song like the epic Twitching With Every Apology you can pinpoint smatterings of everyone from hardcore pioneers like Fugazi, post-rock luminaries Isis to underground heroes such as Spy Versus Spy’s minimalism. It’s all given a commercial sheen by the vocal performance of Sean Mahon, a man who can conjure epic choruses that glue themselves to your brain with a raw roar of bitter frustration. Post-hardcore doesn’t have to be a dirty word.
