Album Review: The Standard by Southpaw FLHC
Southpaw's debut album doesn't do anything new, it doesn't do anything innovative and it certainly doesn't do anything really well.
There is a very specific strain of modern hardcore that mistakes looking intimidating for writing good music. It's 10 tracks of posting tiktoks of yourself at shows, posing in gym mirrors after hitting a 50kg benchpress, and videos of people shadowboxing in their bedroom. Southpaw FLHC's debut full-length, “The Standard,” plants its flag very squarely in that demographic, delivering ten tracks of over-polished, faux tough-guy hardcore that feels less like a band playing their own tracks and more like a terrible cover band of bands that already did this years and years ago. Think Lionheart with less talent and more 30-something guys in matching windbreakers. Even the lyrical themes - legacy, loyalty, perseverance, proving doubters wrong, never folding under pressure - feel like they've been pulled from the same motivational quote generator that's been spewed by half the euro beatdown scene for the last decade.
Now, there's nothing wrong at all with bringing your influences to the forefront of your own writing. Hardcore has and always will thrive on that tradition, with every generation borrowing at least something from the last. The problem is that “The Standard” rarely gives you a reason to remember Southpaw instead of simply putting on Lionheart, Hatebreed, or any number of hardcore bands that have already explored this territory with more conviction and much better songwriting.
Nearly every track follows the exact same blueprint. Intro riff. Verse. Gang vocal. Breakdown. Repeat. You can predict when the tempo drops with great ease. Instead of feeling like these moments are earned through tension and release, the breakdowns become obligatory ticked boxes because that's what this kind of record is supposed to sound like.
There's glimpses of elements the band do well in very small doses, but it gets repeatedly overshadowed by the constant throwbacks and pointlessly mimicking other bands instead of leaning into what sounds genuinely cool. There's a part in the opening track, Rolling Stone that forced a rewind and repeat of 6-7 times because it genuinely sounded fucking cool and out of place with the rest of the track, but then it went right back into the same overdone rigid riff/beatdown/riff pattern which ended up killing the excitement. It's the same with The Path, the track opened with an high-energy thrash sequence that went off the beaten path of Impericon-core chug riffs that transitioned nicely into a hard two-step, but then the track just melted straight back into the pattern the other tracks followed with the slow heavy riff and same 0-1-0-2-1-0 breakdown that the previous track closed with. Getting a guest guitarist to play a 10 second guitar solo that gets drowned out by over produced bass guitar is a very, very bold move, and one that should never be made again..
The title track of the album, the one singular track you'd think would be the piece de resistance, is 3 minutes of spoken word that talks about the band being called out for being industry plants. The Florida based band is releasing their debut album via Spinefarm records with just 1 EP released in 2020, and a long stream of cookie cutter singles as their back catalogue. Make of that what you will, but there's no smoke without fire.
If there was a track fitting for adding to a playlist, it would be The Gavel. Just go ahead and sling it on a generic Hatebreed-core gym playlist and be done with it.
FFO: Lionheart, Hatebreed
SCORE: 2/10
The Standard is out on Friday 31st July, released via Spinefarm Records.
Instagram | Twitter | Apple Music | Spotify