Counterlife is the debut album from London’s post-hardcore proponents, The Higher Line. Following 2023’s debut EP, Antithetic, Counterlife was a year in the making – recorded live in February 2024 by Wayne Adams (Bear Bites Horse), and mastered by Dominic Clare (Declared Sound).
Formed in late 2019, The Higher Line’s members – David Wortrich (bass/synth), Andrew Price (guitar) and Sebastian Durkin (drums/synth) – have long-orbited London’s noise and math rock worlds, playing and recording in the likes of Cherry But No Cake, Company Training, Awkward Body, Man Matters and, more recently, Sverker Clern.
Counterlife remains on a similar thematic tangent to Antithetic, coursing darker corners of the human condition; the death of a friend; observations on the degrading realities of poverty; and rhetorical questions on the comforts of ignorance in an age of overwhelming knowledge.
Musically, The Higher Line draws inspiration from contemporary noise rock and early variants of flyover states emo, though largely post-hardcore of the 1990s variety. The result, however, is harder to quantify, all the more difficult to pigeon hole with Counterlife’s inclusion of synth-based elements. Like many musicians aligned to those genres, the tonal quest remains a constant.
