We all have one.  A 7-inch that carries with it an air of the unfulfilled, the ‘what might have been’.  You couldn’t wait to hear what came next, but, for whatever reason, the debut EP sits there as sole testament to a potential unrealised.

For me, one such band was Everybody Row.  Their solitary release, 2014’s The Sea Inside EP, was a rollicking, boisterous hardcore eruption that literally compelled you to dance.

Well, now we have an opportunity to see how that potential future may have played out with the arrival of the Bay Area’s States Of Nature, whose ranks include Eric Urbach from said band on guitar and vocals.  Not that this is to imply any form of direct imitation – sonically the two bands are quite different.  But what they do share is an undeniable desire to inject their hardcore with an innate swing.

Brighter Than Before represents the band’s debut full-length, following three EPs now collected as Songs To Sway. Clean, reverb-tinged, angular guitars joust with a punchy yet limber rhythm section, while Urbach’s nasal vocals are frequently joined to great effect by those of bassist Lindsey Anne, sometimes in layered harmony, at others in aggressive tandem.  The overall effect is one of bright, almost jaunty melodic post-hardcore, liberally laced in equal measure with both a pronounced pop sensibility (Brighter Than Before, The Return) and a spikier dissonance (Tides, Undone).  The upbeat tone belies darker lyrical themes of wilfully flawed housing policies on the raucous New Foundations, and wider social malaise on the bristling American Drone.