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Knowing that I've got a tall stack of for-review CDs beckoning me in my apartment, I try to be fair and evenly distribute my time to everything I plan on reviewing. Another Breath has destroyed that system.
I've spent far more time listening to Mill City than anything else in the past month. During five-minute drives to work, at work, on the drive home, while cleaning the apartment -- you get the picture -- it's been the focus of my attention.
Mill City is Another Breath's debut full-length and the follow-up to Not Now, Not Ever, which suggested a bright future for the band. It's been a couple of years in the making but, make no mistake, the quiet meantime has led to a memorable, dramatic and enthusiastic hardcore record. Another Breath does everything they do really well. And what they do is ripping, melodic hardcore, thick and catchy guitar riffs, and, especially new to Mill City, gripping, mid-paced songs.
Another Breath is undeniably influenced by some big names, notably Give Up the Ghost and Modern Life Is War, in contemporary hardcore. The band harnesses the scathing, pained singing style and brisk, straightforward guitar parts of the former, as well as the climactic, sometimes restrained approach of the latter. Despite the band's clear inspirations, there's personality to Mill City. The combinations of uniquely catchy guitar riffs and driving tempos result in an accessible quality (listen to "Organized Crime" for a good taste), and the poignant, cliché-free lyrics and fervent vocals glow with sincerity.
Paced like a rollercoaster ride, Mill City is mostly a high-speed, twisting exercise in modern hardcore. But there's a set of slower songs, which give listeners a chance to catch their breath. They're not boring or soft; they're powerful, like the slow, high-anticipation rise to the top of the coaster peak. The flowing grooves in "Diesel and Gunpowder" sandwich a blazing center and accentuate Ted Winkworth's screaming questions: "Have you ever felt so alone that you wanted to just start again? Have you ever felt worthless because no matter how hard you tried you could never live up to the standards that were set by people who could never understand you?" "Orange" breaches four minutes, but doesn't ever lose its step, even amidst its atypical (for Another Breath), riff-heavy grooves.
Thanks to another solid Kurt Ballou production job, Mill City has the big sound to match Another Breath's big ideas. Striking a fine balance between furious hardcore, chilling breaks from the fury, and simply telling the story of “a kid from a small shitty town with six friends, a dream, and a van named Conan,” this is unarguably one of the best (and arguably the best) hardcore records to drop so far this year.
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