Chaos is Me: October 2020

Welcome back to Chaos is Me, Nine Circle’s monthly screamo column curated by me, for you. October felt like more tricks than treats, but there was still plenty of great music to shout out, so lets dive right in.

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Burial Etiquette/Coma Regalia – Held Tight in Fragile Embraces

First up, we have a split release between Ontario’s Burial Etiquette and the US’s Coma Regalia, a name I only just brought up last month but am more than happy to shout out again. Burial Etiquette’s two songs on this split are up first though, and make quite an impression for this band I hadn’t heard of before this release. A gloomy, minimalist affair, this three piece balances several different singing and screaming voices over music that is spacious, dark, and comfortable in a mid-paced smolder. Coma Regalia, by comparison, are in as fine a form here as they were on the songs released last month. Coming in with a much more frantic pace than their splitmates, Coma Regalia still manage to inject moments that match the bleak atmosphere of the songs preceding them while lighting a fire under the back half of this album with their energy and melodicism. This one packs a punch.

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Mališa Bahat/Zmar – Split

There are lots of countries around the world with great screamo scenes, and I try to do my best on this column to not just focus on the bands from where I call home. With that being said, today I’m pretty happy to talk about a new split between two bands from Croatia, a country I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here before. Mališa Bahat is up first, and unlike the previously covered split, these folks kick things off with a bang with their in-your-face emoviolence. The songs here are a little more on the aggressive side, but when the band injects a little melodicism as on “Fever Dreams,” it makes for a truly addicting combination. Zmar’s two songs contributed are longer, darker, and lean more on classic post-hardcore vibes, building up from a dour atmosphere to towering crescendos. These two acts are good enough to make me want to see what the rest of the Croatian scene is like, so hats off the them.

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Brahm – Without Honor and Humanity

Finally, we’re going to talk about my favorite release from last month, the debut EP from the brand new San Jose outfit Brahm. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when clicking play on this album; I kind of just thought the cover art looked cool. What I got, however, is something really special. Without Honor balances out its post-hardcore aggression with the kind of romantic melodicism that’s like air in my lungs, almost at times recalling a mix of Loma Prieta and some of the more anthemic moments from Deafheaven’s Sunbather. Guess it must be a Bay Area thing. Whatever might be in the water up north, one thing that’s for sure is that this is easily some of the best screamo I’ve heard all year.

Here is a Classic Album I Think You Should Be Listening To: Funeral Diner’s magnum opus The Underdark