Recommended Album: Gouge Away – ‘Deep Sage’

There would be no modern hardcore scene breaking preconceived boundaries like it is right now without Gouge Away’s influence kicking down walls. With their progressive creative train of thought nearly a decade earlier between their 2016 debut, , Dies, and 2018’s sophomore follow-up, Burnt Sugar, the sound of the scene which the Florida-rooted four-piece sparked in a burn of post-hardcore cathartics and sludgy, alternative rock grind behind it positioned the pit in the space right between your eyes. It’s a storm of the subconscious to sink into, though the company of a sea of bodies colliding works just as well, too. Many newer artists have been trying to emulate that energy. Some have succeeded and even made their own evolutions in form. Others have created a sea of soundalikes. Through it all, Gouge Away had been missing in action. The pandemic years made for loss studio time as members splintered across the country and took on other projects (vocalist Christina Michelle did a short stint as a member of Nothing) while the world stood still. There wasn’t any firm certainty we’d ever see Gouge Away back into our graces, until a surprise gig opening for kindred heirs Militarie Gun in Portland reignited and reunited them. Deep Sage, recorded in their newly adopted Pac NW meeting ground, is chapter three from Gouge Away which hears Michelle alongside guitarists Mick Ford and Dylan Downey, bassist Tyler Forsythe, and drummer Thomas Cantwell sinking even deeper into their skin. It’s Gouge Away’s fuel to their original formula fully concentrated for both combustibility and slowburn, if now with wiser rage. You hear it in the standouts subdued in crackling shoegazing embers of “Dallas”, “Idealized”, and “A Welcome Change” where Michelle’s takes on the form of sinew pluming from a cerebral core as her voice screams out not only to the people around her, but primarily her own self, or someone resembling those persons. These themes reflect against a shattered world, pieced together in the album’s mirror parts and attempting to make out the shape of an outline more whole. Any clarity found is interrupted by a turbulent headcharge that digs incision points into the psyche and creates pop blisters. They’re not as outright visible as they are in the blue sky scourge of Militarie Gun or Scowl, but Gouge Away claim comfort in their own self-made chaos when letting the thrill of it take over them, weaving dazed bops like “Maybe Blue” “Overwater” and frenzy with “The Sharpening” and “Spaced Out” through the same tangled brainwaves. This is the kind of thing that can come from living through deep experience. Whereas others are chasing the escape from those feelings, Gouge Away are running straight into them. It’s its own sage advice from a band that has and continues to trust their internal instincts as much as time tries to upend them.

Highlights: “Maybe Blue”, “The Sharpening”, “Dallas”

Gouge Away’s Deep Sage is available now on Deathwish Inc.

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