WIRE LOVE Leave The Bones

THIS CHARMING MAN

Münster’s hardcore nostalgists make a timely offering

The debut album from this German post-hardcore collective is something of a rarity in this day and age: a hardcore punk rock record that mines a set of influences that appear to have been long forgotten in 2018. Where the majority of hardcore bands are either happy to ape the Deathwish Inc format or, slightly more sickeningly, jump on the bloated, floating corpse of radio-friendly modern metalcore, Wire Love have taken influence from the early 00s, Trustkill Records school of bands. There’s much more in the way of Poison The Well, Hopesfall or even Thursday in songs like the pummelling Red Dress or the woozy-tochuggy Shadow. It’s not quite at the level of the very best of those bands quite yet, but is a promising start and a beautifully evocative throwback to a very different time in the world of hardcore.

FOR FANS OF: Poison The Well, Hopesfall, Cave In

STEPHEN HILL