Fresh Picks: Super Unison – The Fruit Of Punk’s Loins.
Super Unison – Oakland/San Francisco, California, USA.
Cover Photo credit: Angela Owens.
Above photo credit: Reid Haithcock Photography – Click Here.
I received a message recently from a friend in Baltimore in the US that I have semi-regular contact with. The conversations always end up on music and I often rely on him because of the uncanny talent he possesses to recommend my next loud and abrasive obsession within the world of Punk and progressive music. Enter, Super Unison.
San Francisco and Oakland are known for their strong musical affinity towards the discordant and breakneck pace of Punk music and Super Unison are very much a fruit of this loin.
The band formed in 2014 and currently have their debut self titled EP and the track ‘Photosensitivity’ available on their bandcamp page, both of which have left me on the edge of my seat wanting more since the first press of play.
Early Hot Water Music on speed. Fugazi or Rites Of Spring if Hardcore Punk had happened in the early 2000’s and Comeback Kid were up there with Black Flag and Minor Threat. Refused if they had been a decade later and kept their Hardcore speed and applied that to The Shape Of Punk To Come; these were simply my initial thoughts.
Post-Hardcore is still recognisable to enough of an extent to use the term these days, but can often present itself in various forms that either try too hard or water down the fury. Super Unison do not do that.
It’s fast, melodic, aggressively discordant and quite simply puts the Hardcore back in Post-Hardcore. Now, that may be one of the more cliche sentences I’ve written but it’s bang on. ‘Walk Away’ for example, is pure aggression and disgust and had me hooked immediately.
‘I gave the air inside my lungs, and I meant every word I sung, I gave you a part of me and I have to accept what you can’t see, my perspective changes, as I walk away.’
‘Recognise Me’ is furious Hardcore on the intro but boasts a super-charged Post-Hardcore verse, while ‘Close Your Eyes’ plys some At The Drive-In-esque Punk-Rock rhythms and melodies blended very violently alongside Hardcore fury.
I like to think the final track of the EP is titled ‘On Repeat’ for a reason, as that is exactly what the band’s music has been placed on. It’s a track that balances the melodic tendencies of modern Hardcore down to a tee without losing any of rawness the band breathe and scream, shout, pluck, strum or mercilessly strike for that matter.
It was December’s ‘Photorealism’ that clinched it for me overall and well and truly buried the aforementioned hook.
It’s more melodic and well layered in a way that sent my mind to ‘For Want Of’ by Rites Of Spring but at the same time, it’s just as up tempo and as driven as the more Hardcore-led tracks.
Vocally for the most part, it’s more sombre, but just as emotional and raw with an edge that fans of Modern Life Is War would appreciate and quite frankly, is Post-Hardcore done right.
Find all things Super Unison below:
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