Altsounds - Gwen Stacy – The Life I Know

I find the type of music that Gwen Stacy make really hard to connect with. There is an intense aggressiveness surrounding Gwen Stacy, the vicious growls, roared by lead singer Cole Wallace throughout the songs will either put you off or engulf you into the record. People either love this type of music or they don’t. It is almost like there is an air of hostility emitted from Wallace’s vocals to the guitars and the drums. However this is the style of genre (hardcore) we are listening to, and the sound that has inevitably influenced and moulded this band.

On songs such as The Fear In Your Eyes and opening track The Path To Certainty, out of the relentless onslaught comes soaring vocals on the chorus by Brent Schindler. The clean sung vocals act as a real contrast, in creating a duel like effect to enhance the emotion of the song, and it seems to thread everything together.

Overall I find this release really disjointed, an issue that I have with a lot of hardcore material. In particular it is the individual songs themselves, the elements that make up the songs just don’t seem to fit with each other. There doesn’t appear to be any cohesion between the vocals and the guitar and drums, it all feels very separate. I am sure more devoted listeners will be able to connect with Gwen Stacy, and distinguish differences from track to track, for me however it all sounds rather like a loud mess.

Words by Joel Ross