Het gaat er nogal wild aan toe bij deze San Diegans die een pakkende mix aan stijlen brengen en dat zelf dan maar 'sasscore' noemen. Ik hoor de razernij van Asuza waar ik gek van ben, maar evenzeer wat emocore elementen waar collega Maui warm van wordt. In dat opzicht mag het vocaal geweld wat mij betreft helemaal shiften naar zangeres Connie Sgarbossa die laveert tussen de grunts van Tatiana Shmayluk en de screams van Eleni Zafiriadou. Laat die softe partijen van
The Romance Of Affliction verschijnt op 5 november via Pure Noise Records.
Luister ook naar If I Die First ...
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Speaking on their latest single, “Misinterpreting Constellations’’ Connie states: “...it's a look back at actions you viewed as a romantic situation, and still do to an extent, but being able to realise that ‘love at all cost’ maybe wasn’t the healthiest thing for yourself, them or others”.
The second full-length studio album from San Diego’s self proclaimed “Sasscore” outfit expands on the darker elements that weave together the band’s DNA. Produced by Knocked Loose guitarist Isaac Hale, “The Romance Of Affliction” stands as the quintessential SeeYouSpaceCowboy record. It’s violent and vicious, harrowing but oddly comforting, bleak yet beautiful. It’s a complex and compelling mix of genres that defies categorisation and which truly places the band in a world of their own.
Lyrically it examines struggling with adversity while trying to find beauty within that fight and the hope of triumph. It’s the sound of total collapse, of darkness closing in, of trying to escape – through drugs, through death, through whatever means necessary – from the horrors of existence. Two weeks after the band finished recording, frontwoman Connie Sgarbossa nearly died from a drug overdose. It was, she admits, a kind of physical manifestation of everything the album’s 13 songs are about.
“Writing music is cathartic to me”, she says. “Getting things on paper is the only way I know how to deal with stuff. So to have that happen two weeks later almost backed up why I wrote the album – it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It reinforced that I wrote the album that I needed to write”. Reflecting on the themes of the new album Connie comments: “The album is a reflection on the last couple of years of our lives; It serves as a tongue in cheek, but genuine look at what it means to struggle through adversity while trying to find some beauty in it all... It’s about making art about parts of our lives that are ugly and how that seems to resonate the most with people”. Sgarbossa expands by adding: “...what it means to be in love with someone as well as the substances that are killing you both, what it means to use sex as a way to try to feel content and loved but without a true connection that instead makes you feel more isolated. The poetic nature of writing songs about addiction only to almost die of an overdose a few weeks later. It’s a pretty coat of paint on a crumbling structure”.
