Description
Scowl is a band that sounds exactly like their name implies. Venomous, fierce, antagonistic. A sneer not to be crossed. Over the last five years, the Santa Cruz, California, band has firmly planted their flag in the hardcore scene with their vicious sound and ripping live show, sharing stages around the world with Circle Jerks, Touché Amoré, and Limp Bizkit, and filling slots at prominent festivals like Coachella, Sick New World, and Reading and Leeds. B
ut with their new album, ‘Are We All Angels’ (Dead Oceans), Scowl is aiming to funnel all that aggression through a more expansive version of themselves. Much of ‘Are We All Angels’ grapples with Scowls newfound place in the hardcore scene, a community which has both embraced the band and made them something of a lightning rod over the past few years.
Standout single Not Hell, Not Heaven outright rejects the narratives cast onto them by outsiders. Its about feeling victimized and being a victim, but not wanting to identify with being a victim, explains vocalist Kat Moss. Its trying to find grace in the fact that I have my power. I live in my reality. You have to deal with whatever you’re dealing with, and it aint working for me. The band breaks from a sense of disassociation to seek deeper connections on Fantasy. Its incredibly challenging to try to balance my love for the scene while also feeling, in some spaces, extremely alienated and hated, Moss says. Fantasy is about feeling like I don’t know how to connect with these people anymore, because I have shelled myself away so hard.
The album ends in a philosophical place on the closing, titular track, ‘Are We All Angels’, asking questions like, Is this all there is? and ultimately putting it on the listener to decide. Its about the personal struggle between good and evil. It doesnt matter how good or bad you are, there are systems that will try to rewrite your narrative no matter what you actually do, explains Moss, noting that punctuation on ‘Are We All Angels’ has been deliberately omitted in an attempt to leave the statement open-ended.
Black vinyl pressing
Tracklisting
Side A:
1. Special
2. B.A.B.E.
3. Fantasy
4. Not Hell, Not Heaven
5. Tonight (Im Afraid)
Side B:
6. Fleshed Out
7. Let You Down
8. Cellophane
9. Suffer The Fool (How High Are You?)
10. Haunted
11. Are We All Angels
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