‘Blood sucking parasites, Grasping for the spotlight, Social games to be played, Again and again, Feast on one another, Until they’re all the same’ (Sycophant)

Permission are to my mind at least, perhaps, the most undervalued hardcore band to have emanated from these shores in the past decade.  So, I was more than a little excited to see that members of that band, plus Subdued and Last Affront, had a new enterprise, Second Death.

And their self-titled debut is an absolute stormer.  Many of Permission’s defining attributes remain firmly in place.  The utterly claustrophobic atmosphere is tensely fraught and uneasy.  The guitar is often blisteringly fast, with the rest of the band enveloped in a frenetic race to keep up with the unremitting pace.  It feels utterly chaotic, the flares of melody swallowed in waves of discordance.  As the album unfurls the level of intricacy and complexity that propels the relentless barrage becomes ever clearer.

Yet this is no simple reworking and Second Death rapidly establish their own identity.  Firstly, they have relaxed the rigorously enforced prism that defined Permission – very fast, always very, very fast – and are prepared to allow their songs to breath just a little, to lean into more of a mid-paced groove.  On occasion, there is even scope for a fleeting yet bruising breakdown.

The second evolution is vocally.  The urgently breathless growl has become a still desperate but more roared expression as the vocals explore darkly allusive reflections rooted in a sense of isolation, distrust, and uncertainty.  This shift is most likely both a cause and effect of Second Death’s more varied pacing and works a treat.

The frenzied The Burning Light kicks proceedings off in style with further stand out tracks including the pounding Sycophant, the choppy riffed ferocity of Caving, and the swaggering, bass-fuelled closer, Stripped.  Abrasively compelling, this is hardcore without artifice.  Permission may be dead, but Second Death is quite the resurrection.