Every hardcore band needs to take note of what are GEL doing right now as an alternative blueprint in shaping the scene’s future. While it’s admirable when bands have ambitions to stretch the limits of the genre’s sound beyond the norms of the pit, sometimes expanding the pit is just as much of an atlas fete. The Jersey rockers have certainly proven themselves capable of that since breaking ground with last year’s listmaking debut album, Only Constant, in how they’ve handled their ascent in front of larger and larger audiences.

Moving on from Convulse Records to the post-Roadrunner Records label Blue Grape Music for their new EP, Persona, further elevates their intensely sociopolitical crowdkills on the heatmap beyond just a hardcore reach, but through and through, they maintain the ethos of everything they stand for — just with more muscular limbs that feel fully jacked and pop a vein or few in the art of the subtle hook, readying them for what awaits on stages that will hopefully only get deservedly larger. Nothing has changed about their intents either. They’re still scathing billionaire scum, bad faith politics, and fighting for the marginalized as we speed into the void. It’s just that now, it’s in screaming in a violently bold font you can’t ignore.

Backed by a more polished ‘core producer in Jon Markson (One Step Closer, Drug Church, The Store So Far,) the unbridled static of Only Constant gets a shellac of gloss over it that in turn makes their fire shimmer in the mirage. “Do you feel the pressure?,” vocalist Sami Kaiser asks on the standout “Martyr”. Right now, it doesn’t sound like anything can phase GEL with this kind of pure adrenaline pumping through them. Open up the pit if you want to future-proof it.

Highlights: “Mirage”, “Shame”, “Martyr”

GEL’s Persona will be released August 16th on Blue Grape Music.

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