Album Review: With Love Comes Loss by Current Solace
Album artwork for With Love Comes Loss by Current Solace
Arkansas Christian metalcore band, Current Solace delivers on their debut album, "With Love Comes Loss". Emotionally charged song writing drags their heart across the floor with this release. Whilst metalcore revival is in full swing, a lot of heads have been turned to the past sound and the roots being regurgitated into that “real” metalcore sound.
Current Solace doesn't make grief sound glamorous in the slightest. Chugging riffs, soaring clean choruses to get those fingers pointing at the stage as you rehearse it back at them, breakdowns that feel like they’re trying to knock the wind out of you, and a whole lot of emotional urgency in the vocals. A true homage to the past, I Promise You Forever sets the stage for a big atmospheric start to "With Love Comes Loss", chunky riffs with melodic leads that hit that nostalgic sweet spot. It does come under a slight worship of the band Counterparts with its spoken-word-style cleans, emotional nuances, and chuggy breakdowns. The production is crisp and clean, with razor-sharp guitars, drums that keep it flowing, and vocals with a decent range. The screams are urgent and desperate, and fit the lyrical Christian sacrifice themes perfectly, with the odd clean vocal coming off mature and not forced into the songs like some pop emo track. There is a lot of sincerity on "With Love Comes Loss" that a lot of modern metalcore disregards for TikTok riffs to get views on.
The album as a concept is very upfront with its themes spread throughout the songs. It covers grief, sacrifice, and redemption. Whilst Current Solace are a Christian metalcore outfit, this album is truly for anyone - the Christian elements aren't preachy nor do they come off cringe-inducing - it's true emotional vulnerability to its core, spaced between some cool ass breakdowns to dance to. "With Love Comes Loss" does find itself stuck between a few genres from the start, being clear as day metalcore until mid-album; it re-rebirths itself into some post-hardcore anthems. Not every moment is perfect with "With Love Comes Loss." A few transitions feel clunky and could do with some touching up. The heavier breakdowns, which do sound energetic, play on the safe side, almost generic to what we have been seeing churned out by revival core the past few years. Whilst they do give the bare minimum for people's metalcore needs, they truly shine in the shift to post-hardcore with moodier build-ups, and cleaner guitars layered to build character to each song, allowing for a more dynamic structure to each song than heavy chugging and riffs.
A standout track on "With Love Comes Loss" is, A Change In The Moment. This song changes the tempo of the album massively for its conclusion; playful plucked guitars characteristically found in Midwest emo style give it a pleasant ambience to kick-start the finale of "With Love Comes Loss". Fragile vocals patiently sing along the track and saunter through until the drums kick in into a melodic lift in mood. Swaying guitars bring a sense of relief from the album, allowing a more intimate moment rarely found throughout "With Love Comes Loss". It's a strong closure that solely rounds off the project, with the clear main objective being a massive sing-along song to point and shout at the band with a tease of a quick mosh breakdown as the song fades away.
Current Solace’s Like Yesterday is an energetic and skinny kid dance track. The guitars carry this track heavily; aggressive and abrasive. Everything on this track is raw and screams someone's getting hurt at some basement show in the best way possible. The breakdown is like an anvil with panic chords giving it that flair of intensity. A sense of drama to the track is shown through its use of spoken word layered beneath the track from a distance and becomes an integral part of this song's identity. This song is reminiscent of a few techniques used in the song Late December by SeeYouSpaceCowboy, which is truly a masterpiece of turning grief into a display. Like Yesterday is chaotic, unsettling, and a showmanship of the potential Current Solace has.
"With Love Comes Loss" comes at the perfect time, where genres are fused and bands are praised for taking a new direction in their sound. Metalcore and Post-Hardcore have both splintered their fans of each respective genre and evolved their sound into people chasing trends, nostalgia, or something unique. Current Solace have chased the latter two of those; this isn't a revival core album in and of itself, but they kept their feet planted in what makes their respective genres authentic. It's heavy, it's vulnerable, it's got its highs and lows, which perfectly tells the tale of what the band was covering in its lyrics in the first place.
FFO: Counterparts, I Promise The World, Foreign Hands
SCORE: 7/10
With Love Comes Loss is out on all streaming platforms now, released via Less Than Life Records
