Sometimes you’ve got your headphones on listening to an album and you get lost in what you’re doing. The album finishes and helpfully (or not) the algorithm has a few songs lined up for you to listen to next. Most of the time, they’re not really what you’re looking for or what you’re into. Sometimes they’re good, and you enjoy them but then move on with your life. However, sometimes everything lines up perfectly and you get a song suggested by the musical algorithm overlords that hits you just right, gets its claws in, and you have to stop and take note of what it is. That one song leads you off down a road to discover anything and everything that band has to offer. For me, that was Love Rarely.
Their blend of deeply personal, vulnerable lyrics mixed with melodies and riffs that are cutting and cathartic is intense, but at the same time, there’s something comforting and almost reassuring about it all. Their debut album, Pain Travels, wraps up generational pain, family tragedy, trauma, and self-contempt in rough, abrasive music that is as dark as the lyrics, but also at times comes across as almost exhilarating and euphoric. It feels like a release of the pain that has been built up.
Opener “Will”, for example, could be an indie/pop-punk song for at least the first thirty seconds. Led by a bouncy and almost danceable guitar riff, it draws you in until singer Courtney Levitt quickly changes the tone with a scream that comes from the soul and lyrics straight from the heart, spitting lines about not being scared, or forced to stay low, or being pulled down. The music follows suit, morphing into a frantic, jagged, chugging, angular riff that mirrors the emotion and anxiety in the lyrics. Sometimes there is no room for sugar-coating, and the album goes straight for the throat, like on the album’s second track, “Repulse”. It is a hard and fast minute of anger that evokes the music of early Dillinger Escape Plan; think “43% Burnt” type stop-start riffs and rage.
“Blame” and “Whiplash” are two other songs from later in the album that come and go in a flash, but what they lack in length they more than make up for in quality and style. “Whiplash” in particular leaves a real mark with its groove-laced anger and razor-sharp riffs; it’s got a change of pace that is so quick it’ll take you out the first time you hear it. “Severed” is an early high point of the album, which feels weird to say about a song so raw with pain. The vocal range on it is simply breathtaking, from the soft opening to the harsh cathartic screaming and everything in between. The lyrics are delivered with brutal emotion that you can feel through the speakers. Across the whole of the album this is a constant; the vocal delivery hits you each and every time. It seems there’s no style Courtney can’t do, and her ability to deliver every line and every word just right, in such a way so you really feel it, is quite something. The music plays its part as well. “I’ll Try” comes out the gate with ferocious vocals, but it’s almost as if they’re being restrained by the guitars, the bass, and the drums. It is as if they’re doing everything possible to hold it all together, building a wall of sound around the lyrics before it all becomes too much and there’s a heavy, but also delicate, release at the end.
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On “Haunted”, the band show they have space for more than one vocal talent. While turning inward for self-reflection, the song deals with the idea that there are some parts of yourself that you can’t face but can’t let go. On this song, guitarist Lew’s soft refrain brings with it a moment of clarity and calm. This achingly painful melody plays out over pounding drums, thudding bass, and looping guitars amongst the spectrum of brutality that Courtney’s vocals bring. These additional vocals are used sparingly across the album, but when they do feature, they add a real counterweight to the song and bring a different type of heavy. “What You Did” feels like a breather of sorts. It shows a different side to the band and how their talent and skills don’t just rest on the jaggy and heavy tunes; this song draws from more of a shoegaze realm. Think Slowdive, but they’ve just listened to Botch for the first time. While the band are primarily math-rock, with jaggy riffs, meaty bass, and heavy drums, they are clearly drawing from many influences, and it shows with the hardcore vocal parts, the emo sensibilities, and the hints of groove in the rhythm.
“Mould” is my personal highlight on the album, coming towards the end to usher in a strong final stretch. The song itself takes everything that’s come before and brings it together into a perfect mix and a real standout track. The tensions and contrasts are front and centre: the soft and heavy vocals, both Courtney and Lew getting in on the action, the frantic and calm music, and of course, the lyrics that cut you right down the middle.
“Dormant” is the closest you’ll get on the album to a ballad or a straightforward sing-along. Again anchored by Courtney’s vocals, it’s equal parts hauntingly ethereal and ferociously brutal. The song is a deeply personal one; it’s a lot to put into a track. There’s something about how open and honest the band is that builds a real connection with the listener, and maybe it can offer a sense of release to those listening who may have had similar experiences. By this point in the album, you would think there’s nothing new that the band could offer up to surprise you or knock you off balance. Then they go and find a new way to catch you and make you feel something, make you nod your head and go “what a song.” It’s a testament to the band and the album as a whole that there’s really no let-up in intensity, both musically and lyrically, from start to finish. Penultimate song “Disappear” melodically deals with complex emotions around manipulation, the music toing and froing with the lyrics to mirror the complexities of those feelings. Then the album comes to an end. The final song, “Through Families”, is one last stark and open lyrical offering from the band, who sign off with the line “I can’t change you, but I tried”. It feels like a bit of release and realisation at the very end.
I don’t think there’s any getting away from the fact that Pain Travels is deeply personal to the band and at times can be an uncomfortable listen, stemming from the sheer honesty in the lyrics. However, it offers the listener some hope. Yes, pain travels, but in doing so it helps you to learn and grow; hopefully, the next time it comes around you’re more aware and can come out the other side maybe not intact, but a bit stronger. This is all packaged up in music that at times can catch you off guard and doesn’t always let on to the weight it’s carrying on its shoulders… until it does. Having just come off the back of a tour opening for The Callous Daoboys (check out Siobhan’s review of the amazing show), I honestly don’t think it will be too long until Love Rarely are the headline act, certainly not if this album is anything to go by.
Don’t leave it up to the chance of an algorithm picking them out for you; go and listen to this album now. You won’t regret it.
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Pain Travels is out April 10th
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