Reliance - Self Titled EP Review

About a month ago I stumbled upon "Lucid" on Spotify, the 4th track on Relance's brand new self titled EP that released Friday, April 18th. It came up on the All Things Post playlist on a random shuffle. Immediately, I was drawn to their aggressive breed of melodic Post- Hardcore. It's one of my favorite genres so, while a tad biased, I always get excited when I hear quality Post Hardcore.

I must have spun Lucid 100+ times in the first week. The song, while slower paced in nature, stacks up impressively against the entire project as a whole. This lead single contains all the melody, aggression, fantastic lyricism and impressive guitar work that you will find sprinkled across the whole 18 minute, five track release. My personal favorite is "Glass Castle" which on the EP's release day had a coinciding music video dropped as well.

"Wait don't walk away, without tearing all the pages in the book that surround you."

The thing that struck me most about this release is that no particular performance featured on it carries it exclusively at any point in time. Vocalist Thomas Meints has a very unique tone paired with an incredible range, both in clean vocals and unclean. The guitar work of Matthew Eagle and Tyler Diederichsen instantly crush me in nostalgia for the panicked, dissonant chords balanced with enticing minor melodies of the early 2000's post hardcore scene. All of this throwback feel is blended expertly with a fresh dose of 2019 flavor, supported by the always present, never boring percussion work of Jordan Soto.

This EP is contending for my 2019 Album of the Year. Very impressed and cannot stress how excited I am for the bands future.

For fans of (in MY opinion) - Too Close to Touch, Saosin, Silverstein, Slaves, Underoath

Tracklist:

1 Citadel

2 Glass Castle

3 Fragile Skin

4 Lucid

5 Banshee