Album Review: Live In Regret - "Find A Solution"

Shut up, I know it's not Friday. I'm going to be up in the grim and frostbitten north of Onaping, Ontario from this Thursday to Sunday so I figured I'd post now rather than wait 'til next week. As punishment, Jeremy, I will fully listen to and review any album you want me to for next Friday.

That being said, let's get down to the very first album review for this newly reinvigorated blog!

This is what going to school for engineering feels like.

 A week or so ago, Live In Regret dropped a new album chocked full of mathy, noisy, hardcore goodness. These UK chaps have been partaking in some of the old ultra-violence since 2008 now, and Find a Solution marks their second full length album. Two years ago they dropped Let Go, a solid hardcore album whose opening track "Coward" was featured on our very own Grindhouse Vol. 1! The band is a three-piece, with their guitarist taking over studio bass duties.

There's a certain amount of Converge worship these days with most noisy hardcore and metalcore bands, but Live In Regret manages to pull it off with a little bit of personal flair. The band seems to take after the spastic stylings of The Chariot, although they keep it coherent, as the songs don't seem to feel like they're about to fall apart. I typically group bands that sound like The Chariot with bands that sound like Dillinger Escape Plan as well, but Live In Regret have that looseness that traditional 80s and 90s hardcore has. Not every note is as meticulously planned out as "Sugar Coated Sour" is, which is a refreshing thing to hear from a mathy band. It seems that bands that play this style of music are typically so wrapped up in playing in as many stupid time signatures as possible or playing the most technically complex music they can that they forget to feel. Seriously. I know this sounds like hippy-dippy bullshit, but hardcore is one of the most emotionally evocative genres out there. When bands prog it up to the point where it sounds like robots are playing, it kind of defeats the purpose of the music. So kudos to Live In Regret for helping to bring the human element back to mathcore.

I have to commend all the members of the band for some solid performances and songwriting. While each song doesn't last particularly long (the longest clocks in at 2:02, the shortest at 0:39), they ebb and flow naturally, with enough distance between the mathy, noodly bits and enough variance between everything else to keep things interesting. I'm a very big fan of the drumming on this album, because the drums are played with the guitar and bass, not underneath them.

I do find the production kind of lacking for this album, but considering this is a relatively new band's second full length, I con't complain too much that they didn't get to record at God City Studios or anything. The production isn't bad, but if the drums could be a bit more articulate and the bass raised in the mix, I think it would help a ton with their sound.

You can catch Live In Regret on Facebook, Bandcamp, and you can buy a customized teddy bear on their very own webzone. I hear this world wide web is going to be the next big thing!

Jeremy, I'll see you on Tuesday.

-DG