If I were Scowl’s Kat Moss, I’d be really pissed off, too. Why do bands like Turnstile and Militarie Gun get a free pass at bending the “rules” of hardcore around more mainstream-baiting tropes of big hooks and weaponing studio gloss for the desire of mass appeal (and a Taco Bell endorsement) but it’s suddenly a problem when a band from the same scene that has a woman up front is making parallel moves? And why does the transition from screaming toward cleaner vocals while leveling up to a bigger label always necessitate some kind of comparison to wanting to become the next Paramore? Can’t Scowl just be Scowl?

Moss and the rest of the Santa Cruz band seem like they know this is to be sadly expected, but they’re also using it to their advantage on their sophomore effort, Are We All Angels. The chorus on the album’s opening track begrudgingly relents, “I don’t want to be special,” after all, yet it holds space as a reverse psychology of sorts that fuels the internal tension and sweet release from it, in turn allowing them to exist in both worlds, under their own rules and needing not answer to anyone — even their own uneasy feelings.

Recognizing their own polarization on the come-up at this point punctuates all of their strengths on the surface, something which they already began been testing the waters of more concentratedly with their 2023 extended play, Psychic Dance Routine. Pogo-bombing across a dozen tracks that bubble and explode with a joyous energy from embracing the audacity to be an outsider, it gives the five-piece their own permission to fully colorize Moss’ internal monologues with stylistic volatility. The way Scowl can simultaneously zip through punk-pop hooks custom built for the skate park, snarl at you when you get to close to Moss face, and sing you a sweet kiss-off lullaby as a side order to anyone still serving them up with Live Más shade is scary good.

Entrusting Will Yip to get them here makes all the sense, too, considering he’s helped the likes of Turnstile, Turnover, Mannequin Pussy, and Citizen make those crucial leap from outside the pit and onto a bigger stage where the scene’s purest angels are never the ones who let the surrounding noise define them. Instead, Scowl dare to let their wings burn by flying nearest to the sun of their own ambition.

Highlights: “Special”, “Not Hell, Not Heaven”, “Suffer the Fool (How High Are You?)”

Scowl’s Are We All Angels will be released April 4th on Dead Oceans.

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