Departures

When Losing Everything Is Everything You Wanted

Written by: PP on 20/11/2011 03:51:53

Departures from Scotland, not to be confused with the New Jersey punk band with the same name, first caught my ears at Hevy Music Fest a few months ago, where despite an early afternoon slot they packed their tent and delivered an impassioned performance of hardcore of the melodic, anthemic kind. In fact, people have gone on to dub the material on their debut album "When Losing Everything Is Everything You Wanted" as anthemic hardcore, given how much lingering atmosphere dwells in their tormented guitars despite the otherwise heavy instrumentation.

If there's one thing Departures excel at, it's at adding surging amounts of emotion into each song. Helped by their vocalist's extraordinarily torn out, strained scream, every lyric and passage feels like an outburst of raw, unadulterated emotion. You can sense the underlying passion in the music from every atmospheric guitar riff and from each emotional outcry of a scream their vocalist lets out. It's this vibe of honesty and work ethic that uplifts Departures' songs to a level where they are making waves in the British hardcore underground.

Sure, you might claim that their sound owes almost everything to bands like More Than Life and Defeater, but they compensate through relentless passion and heartening performance even on record, where it feels like the band are at a breaking point song in song out. And when the unit clicks, such as on "Sunday" or on "Disappointment", they are absolutely on par with their influences if not even better in places. If they are able to do that more consistently on their next album, they'll be riding the wave all the way to underground stardom in no time.

7

Download: Sunday, Swallowed Up, Disappointment
For the fans of: More Than Life, Defeater
Listen: Bandcamp

Release date 13.06.2011
Fita Records

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