Counterparts

Normally when people use the term "screamo" these days, it's a pejorative, denoting more a subculture than a musical style, associated with whiney teen angst and the safest version of punk or hardcore out there. It brings to mind all kinds of silly haircuts, Much Music VJs interviewing Tokyo Hotel and crying middle school fans. It's really too bad that screamo, or melodic hardcore, or whatever you want to call it, has a bad rap because some acts that make it are phenomenally heavy, very catchy and adept at producing music that's a sonic assault on the senses. Hamilton, ON's Counterparts do exactly this. The Current Will Carry Us is the band's second release, after 2010 debut Prophet, and the new album is the best argument for screamo you'll hear any time soon. Between pummelling riffs and breakdowns, textured melodies and a short-fuse scream, the entire record brings the kind of explosive, grassroots hardcore that only a steel city could produce. Remember that scene in Pulp Fiction where the guy stabs the girl in the heart with an adrenaline shot? The Current Will Carry Us basically does that to a genre many people thought was on its last breath. Counterparts show that energy, talent and attitude will wake up any genre, and beat the crap out of its detractors.