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The Carrier

Blind To What Is Right

Written by: AP on 25/01/2011 12:02:46

From the darkest corner of hardcore often comes its most potent ensemble of musicians, unafraid to challenge long-standing preconceptions about what the genre should sound like. The problem with hardcore in general, is that it shuns innovation under the disguise of wanting to preserve an unspoken set of ideas and values that supposedly represent the genre. Like black metal, the genre has remained a tight knit community that affords little room for deviation: its proprietors and their descendents are stubborn in the face of new bands claiming to belong, dismissing most as sell-outs to the scene movement. But, to return to the initial proposition, these elitists are missing the point. Hardcore has always been angry, but shouting political slogans and swearing profusely no longer holds the water it used to.

In its newest decade bands like The Carrier are rewriting music for the angry and the disillusioned, those who are fed up with their lives and the world, who also have sensitive and artistic merits for expressing their disdain. Ironically an album like "Blind to What is Right" sounds more true because it expresses those emotions sonically as well as lyrically. Forget all about fastidious three chord chugging: "Blind to What is Right" comes armed with five guitars worth of incendious melody - played with just two. Forget all about contrived call-to-arms drivel: Anthony Traniello's voice cracks and wavers with real passion and pain stemming from his own despair and uncertainty. The instruments mirror that anguish with every high and low, peaking and plunging between violent intensity and moments of tormenting calm, and thanks to the cleanest, brightest tone ever heard in the band's musical kinship, the profuse octave leads and noodling shine luminously through cracks in their crushing foundation, never drifting underneath or meshing into it to make a muddy, unappealing wall of sound.

Rather than structure each song in a fashion that spells out here is where you cry and then now here is where you mosh, The Carrier distinguish themselves from not just stereotypical hardcore bands, but from their melodic peers, too, by combining both extremes. Their unorthodox approach to creating texture gives rise to a cold and disconsolate atmosphere, fully reflecting the crushing despondency in Traniello's lyrical introspection. But The Carrier's crusade against puritania does not end there, for as epic and oppressive as hardcore bangers like title track "Blind to What is Right" and "Hollow Pain" may sound, the band's true grit only truly manifests itself when they turn things down on the likes of "A Stranger to Myself" and "Downstream", both of which wallow in a diminished chord heartache that portends a devastating final act broodle death metal bands wish they could top.

"Blind to What is Right" is a masterclass in shifting the dynamic of a genre. It ups the aggression, feeling far more feral, wounded and dangerous than the genre staple, but bolsters equal parts memorable hooks. Audacious in its brutality and pure in its intentions, "Blind to What is Right" is an intense and often overwhelming album that, given its drastic and emotionally punishing content, is as difficult to embrace as it is awe-inspiring. That the band resides on the Deathwish Inc. roster should come as no surprise: as a pioneer in the hardcore genre, Jacob Bannon knows a torch bearer when he sees one.

Download: Blind to What is Right, Hollow Pain, Downstream, All That's Left to See
For the fans of: Carpathian, Casey Jones, Defeater, Killing the Dream, Ruiner
Listen: Myspace

Release date 18.01.2011
Deathwish Inc.