After 7 different presses on vinyl and just in time for the European tour 6131 records is finally releasing Touché Amoré 2009's debut full length ...To The Beat Of A Dead Horse in a nice digipack.
If you're still looking for the next best thing in hardcore, don't look further. Ever since the release of their demo in 2008 this Los Angeles based band (which is on the road all the time) have been bopping more heads than any other new band in hardcore around right now.
Whereas some people were very quick to categorise the band as a second hand Modern Life Is War or American Nightmare, I beg to differ. There are many similarities between the three bands, yet there are as much if not more differences.
Ofcourse singing about 'going to Morrissey to answer my questions, because Ian Curtis has left me hanging', does place a band in a certain section of the hardcore scene.
And the raw emotion in the voice of Jeremy Bolm does bare some resemblance to the sound of Modern Life Is War singer Jeffrey Eaton. Yet you only have to listen to 'Always Running Never Looking Back', on which Eaton does some guestvocals, to hear these are frontmen with different styles.
Touché Amoré is less straightforward than either American Nightmare or Modern Life Is War. Yet they pull off their 'arty' sound without scaring me and other people into plain and simple hardcore away.
At first I wasn't that much into the sound of the whole record. And I remember even having a discussion with Rob Moran (bassplayer of a certain band) about it. In the end I have to admit he was right. The sound of ...To The Beat Of A Dead Horse is different from what is considered the right sound nowadays. But it's also refreshing, when you have warmed up too it, to hear something different than another Kurt Ballou, Jay Maas or Bill Stevenson production. It adds a flavour to the band.
If you are looking to invest in a hardcore band I would say Touché Amoré is the band to go with. They got the style, originality and personality to become the American Nightmare of this era. The only thing left to wonder is, will they be able to write another full length as good as this one?
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