Go It Alone "Histories"

It's funny how fast you lose touch with music news once you stop writing it. (As an aside, I'd rather be out of the loop than still writing news updates; holy shit did that get old.) Apparently, Go It Alone is about to wrap up their two-full-length-and-one-EP career, marking the end of another good, Northwest (Vancouver, to be exact)-based melodic hardcore band. I'm not exactly heartbroken about the news, but Go It Alone is the kind of sincere, pure band that'll be easy to miss.

And Histories will go down as their swan song. It's not as consistently strong as the band's 2005 release, The Only Blood Between Us, but it's generally memorable, impassioned and even a bit progressive. Go It Alone continues to favor playing hard instead of heavy, hammering out 11 songs that, for the most part, are rife with high-speed rhythms, straightforward chord progressions and seething, shouted vocals. Since Go It Alone avoids breakdowns and two-steppin' chugging, though, they fill the gaps with cold, brisk guitar melodies and a variety of unexpected songwriting tactics and tempos. There are dramatic buildups (hell, that's all "Weight I" is), drawn out introductions (you can't say that of "Relics" isn't awesome), and a few slow-ish and dark-ish songs ("Monastery," especially), among other things. Needless to say, Histories ain't a bunch of simple, one-minute hardcore jams. There's some real depth here.

It doesn't really seem like Go It Alone's style, but I could go for a few more hooks. Even though the gang vocals and sing-alongs go a long way, I'm pretty sure that a catchy chorus or two would work wonders -- at least on me. Still, Histories is a pretty good melodic hardcore record. Not groundbreaking, but not so un-groundbreaking that it's boring.

They'll be missed: Go It Alone - Observer

Get it from the always awesome Rivalry Records.