ONE STEP CLOSER

Explosive emotional outburst from melodic-hardcore newcomers

PENNSYLVANIAN HARDCORE NEWCOMERS One Step Closer have been shaped by their hometown of Wilkes-barre, for better or worse. “It’s a weird, depressing place,” admits frontman Ryan Savitski. “You have to be creative with what you’ve got because there’s nothing else really around.”

Aside from a bunch of great hardcore bands, that is. Turned on to the scene by watching a secret show by local legends Title Fight, Ryan was galvanised into forming his own band aged 12. “Title Fight were on Warped Tour so couldn’t officially play any other shows” he explains. “So they played under the name ‘Western Haikus’, along with Cold World, Bad Seed and Dead End Path. It was a crazy bill, and really emotional because the show was a benefit for a friend of theirs who’d passed away.”

Many years (and bands) later, One Step Closer continued the trend for turning adversity into positive energy, particularly when their tour with hardcore heroes Turnstile was cut short in March 2020. “I started getting calls saying Trump was imposing a travel ban”, Ryan says. “We got home with no idea when we’d tour again and it was like getting hit by a tidal wave of emotions about home we’d tried to avoid.”

Rather than fall into depression, the band funnelled their frustrations into debut record This Place You Know, fusing hardcore energy and emotional intensity. “It’s all about capturing those feelings, this sense that we had grown beyond this place that was suffocating us,” he says, resolutely. “It’s an escape.”

THIS PLACE YOU KNOW IS OUT NOW VIA RUN FOR COVER