The Eastern U.S. has a beautiful thing going right now. To those out of touch with the present boom, a handful of acts (namely Vatican, Sanction and Old Wounds) have churned out material that pieces together the cavity between an Eighteen Visions demo and first Emmure record in novel taste.
Some have a tough guy façade, others revisit the swoopy-haired tendencies of Orange County's "fashioncore," and Tourniquet are not so far off from either. Running adjacent to the current clan of East coast metalcore heat, their social media sassily brands them as "scene queens" who "hate you" and "stole your boyfriend" with their mosh metal staples and frenzied vocal tones that recall fellow Jersey screamers the Number 12 Looks Like You.
This year alone, Tourniquet have performed on bills alongside Knocked Loose, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and Candiria. With such affiliations, one may anticipate some serious sonic diversity. There is melodic flavour, scathing noise and mathy sections on "Nine Dead Angels" and "Lilith," but the songs feel scattered, desperate and insincere when the group try to gloss their sound with anything beyond guitar chugging and panic chords.
That said, "Artax" is I Hate the Way This Makes Me Feel's restorative lustre. At around three minutes, the album's longest track meanders between mid-range shouting and urgent shrieking, crackling noise and chilling sound clips to pace Tourniquet's fierce pit parts. "Copper Palms" and "Control/8lt/Delete" do this similarly, but with less conviction, sounding more like largely pasted pieces of heavy hardcore clichés than outright, complete songs.
I Hate the Way This Makes Me Feel is a mostly habitual cosplay of Ferret Records metalcore from the early 2000s. While undeniably nostalgic and often semi-gratifying, there is much less to be said about Tourniquet's shabby attempts at a cohesive, inventive vision. One thing is certain though, Tourniquet sure can write a breakdown.
(Independent)Some have a tough guy façade, others revisit the swoopy-haired tendencies of Orange County's "fashioncore," and Tourniquet are not so far off from either. Running adjacent to the current clan of East coast metalcore heat, their social media sassily brands them as "scene queens" who "hate you" and "stole your boyfriend" with their mosh metal staples and frenzied vocal tones that recall fellow Jersey screamers the Number 12 Looks Like You.
This year alone, Tourniquet have performed on bills alongside Knocked Loose, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and Candiria. With such affiliations, one may anticipate some serious sonic diversity. There is melodic flavour, scathing noise and mathy sections on "Nine Dead Angels" and "Lilith," but the songs feel scattered, desperate and insincere when the group try to gloss their sound with anything beyond guitar chugging and panic chords.
That said, "Artax" is I Hate the Way This Makes Me Feel's restorative lustre. At around three minutes, the album's longest track meanders between mid-range shouting and urgent shrieking, crackling noise and chilling sound clips to pace Tourniquet's fierce pit parts. "Copper Palms" and "Control/8lt/Delete" do this similarly, but with less conviction, sounding more like largely pasted pieces of heavy hardcore clichés than outright, complete songs.
I Hate the Way This Makes Me Feel is a mostly habitual cosplay of Ferret Records metalcore from the early 2000s. While undeniably nostalgic and often semi-gratifying, there is much less to be said about Tourniquet's shabby attempts at a cohesive, inventive vision. One thing is certain though, Tourniquet sure can write a breakdown.