By Kat Preston
I think it's well worth worrying when your initial listen to an album turfs up as many cons as my first listen of Touché Amoré's long awaited, mega-hyped new release Is Survived By. It's not terrible, by absolutely no means. It does sound like Touché Amoré, but more like Touché Amoré trying to be someone else. Or it sounds like a band pretending to be Touché Amoré. Like a really good cover band. I'm not sure that's the kind of development you look for in a band you've enjoyed seeing and listening to as much as I have with these guys.
Lacking the raw power I loved so much about their previous albums, I find it very vanilla. It doesn't feel particularly explorative, or progressive. Just a kinda side-step from their more recent split material. If you're new to this band, I don't recommend starting here or you may end up disappointed. To me, this new sound would be much more at home on their previous splits with La Dispute, The Casket Lottery, PBTT, MDAM etc, slowly working up to a whole album's worth.
It picks up to a more familiar sound by track seven 'Kerosene', which is really getting me nodding my head, which continues through to 'Blue Angel' and onwards quite nicely until the end. Actually, I think this might be a bit of a slow bloomer. If only this album started in reverse, or from track seven, I think it would make an overall much better impression. 'Non Fiction' billows out into a cloud of the former half of the album, but again, you're launched back in to the fist-clenching, chest-grabbing emotion of the second half. There's an element of a stage performance here, two definitive parts that in themselves seem to paint different pictures and contain fairly varied vibes.
Second listen: NOW we're talking- the energy comes through much stronger, Jeremy's vocals are ripe with feeling and chime with relatable despondency. However, what I have already said still stands. A friend told me "It's supposed to be a grower" and I think he's been informed correctly. I also still stand by checking out their last two records first. It seems to be somewhat of a trend this musical year to start toning down the aggression in favour of lighter, softer, more delicate overtones. Which in some cases has worked tremendously, and others, not so. Alas, this being one of them.
I'm still a bit disappointed. I was secretly hoping for something that made me feel as much excitement, understanding, and emotional connection as Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me, but I'm just left staring at a wall wondering what I'm doing with my life… and why the music stopped ages ago without me noticing.
Sorry guys, I'm just not on board for this one. But I'm definitely intrigued as to where their sound will progress from here though, hopefully bringing back a bit more raw emotion and that weird, only-music-can-do heartbreaking joy that they had down to such an unbelievable pat.
FFO: La Dispute, Basement, More Than Life
