Night Verses frontman Doug Robinson cut his teeth with angsty yet playful melodic hardcore pups The Sleeping, but it’s immediately apparent with Lift Your Existence that the Long Islander is all grown up and on the form of his life.
The new band, a bi-coastal collaboration between Robinson and Californians Nick DePirro, Reilly Herrera and Aric Improta, are a much more insular proposition, opener Elucidation setting out their stall with a beautiful, dynamic cloud of Deftones-style sighs and minor-key melancholy.
But that oppressive sadness is only half of the story. There’s plenty of excitement to be found here too. Improta’s frequent meteor showers of percussion rain down on claustrophobically howling, juddering riffs, the band switching from darkly sensitive to focused, snarled aggression and back again, Phoenix I, Rising II, Falling stretching luxuriously across 10 gorgeous, tech-tinged minutes.
Draw the curtains and turn down the lights because dark nights of the soul sound great right now.
