Solid melodic hardcore coming straight outta Adelaide.
The latest collection of sounds from Adelaide's Dead Ties arrived just last week with the quintet's new EP, 'Beauty Is Everywhere'. Marking the milestone tenth release for label Best Wishes Records (who also earlier this year put out Staunch's last EP) Dead Ties' 'Beauty Is Everywhere' is five songs of all-round solid, melodic, "Northern Suburbia Hardcore".
Back in September 2015, when the South Australian upstarts released their 'Clear // Thoughts' two-track, they stated the following in the release's Bandcamp description:
"Our intention behind this release was to introduce a newly rebranded Dead Ties and to produce something that we're proud of. Supporting the idea of being yourself, we didn't try to prove ourselves to anyone, we just wrote this for the sake of writing music that we all loved."
That notion of producing something you're actually proud of, of writing music that you love, and of being yourself are ideals that the band have clearly recaptured here and are all apparent across each of these five new compositions. Taking what the group originally showed on their two-track 'I Am // Endless' from last year and then developing it much further with deeper melodic tendencies, a larger sense of atmosphere, prominent clean vocals, a higher degree of palpable emotion, and tighter songwriting - Dead Ties have really matured and have grown wonderfully so.
This EP flows well from start to finish, and when you boil it all right down, it's also a very consistent release!
Whether it's the heavier sonic punch felt in opener 'Dazed' that channels the old Dead Ties but in a far better light; the gorgeous tremolo guitars heard in 'Don't Speak' that beget a truly awesome climax; that song's reverb-heavy drum outro flowing into the opening moments of the short, romantically inclined and hook-driven 'First Light'; the way that vocalist Liam Protheroe delivers his screams and heartfelt lyrics so earnestly throughout this grand EP; the warmer tones, busier drum work, and upbeat feel of 'Blinded'; or the engrossing spaciousness, minimal sections, and dynamic atmosphere constructed on the stand out titular track - this isn't the same young, naive, rough-around-the-edges band that released this three-track EP two years ago. No, this is something much better.
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The 'Beauty Is Everywhere' EP was mixed & mastered by Reactions vocalist Lachy Pitcher over at Depict Studios, who has done a great job at gluing the band's melodic hardcore sonics together, with all of the music being composed by Dead Ties own guitarist, Aston Valladares. I don't know about the rest of you, but if this new release is anything to go on, then that sounds like one hell of a winning combination to me!
I strongly recommend Dead Ties latest work if you dig the likes of Perspectives, Hindsight, Aburden, enjoy relationships that are going smoothly (or horribly wrong even), and if you love getting amongst the emotional feels.
'Beauty Is Everywhere' is out now - go pick it up here.
