Stick To Your Guns
Better Ash Than Dust EP
(Pure Noise Records)
OC melodic-hardcore stalwarts Stick To Your Guns have never been ones to shy away from their political inclinations. It’s fitting that in an election year in which the US political spectrum has devolved to a farcical state and instances of police brutality and other injustices have finally found a home in the headlines, that Better Ash Than Dust is the Stick To Your Guns most openly confrontational release yet.
Picking up where they left off with 2015’s combustible Disobedient, Better Ash Than Dust delivers five white-hot tracks of ‘revolutionary mental attitude’ that will activate the pit and the mind in equal measure.
Opener “Better Ash Than Dust” kicks things off in a reassuringly familiar style with vocalist Jesse Barnett’s trademark bark spitting out intense self-reflections, over a crushing hardcore backdrop, establishing a base for the anthems of self-empowerment and societal betterment to come. As Barnett’s ever-improving melodic vocals soar in the chorus, you can hear the introspection morphing into motivation. As the philosophical musings of Jiddu Krishnamurti provide the calm before a musical storm.
“Universal Language” drops the introspection in favour of open defiance, encouraging the oppressed to switch the narrative by speaking in a language that their oppressors might understand; aggression. Monstrous grooves and ferocious vocals interlock, creating an ominous soundscape that sounds every bit as urgent and venomous as the lyrics, with Barnett’s cleans once again providing a melodic juxtaposition, it is Stick To Your Guns clicking into beast mode, where they remain for the two-step inciting stompfest “No Tolerance” that follows. Thrashing riffs and pounding rhythms explode as message of zero tolerance for those who perpetrate and facilitate social division lodges itself in your brain. “The Never Ending Story” continues the sonic onslaught with moshcore guitars and an earworm of a chorus leading to a colossal breakdown in which the band dares the apathetic masses “to give a fuck about something”.
In keeping with the proactive nature of the lyrical narrative,“The Suspend” closes things out in a slightly more progressive, yet still powerful manner, with the slow-building, atmospheric approach calling to mind Barnett’s alt-rock side-project Trade Wind. Brimming with a sense of hope and determination in the face of impending doom, it’s a perfect way to end an EP that sits comfortably in the Stick To Your Guns catalogue and reinforces that in a world riddled with apathy they still dare to give a fuck.
Purchase Better Ash Than Dust here: iTunes | Physical
