Landscapes - Life Gone Wrong
Landscapes have steadily been building a reputation as a forerunner of the UK's hardcore scene for a few years now - and this album represents the fruits of their labours. It's a 9 song demonstration of self-assurance; a grower rather a shower, Life Gone Wrong is about as idiosyncratic as modern hardcore gets.
The follow up to 2010's impressive Reminiscence, Life Gone Wrong is an ambitious effort that goes way beyond the boundaries of a title that indicates generica. Opener Cemetary and second track No Love represent a full body of combined work - and the album is as much a continuing single entity as it is 9 separate tracks. The music is at times ambient and spacious, never as immediate as many of their peers - and melodic without any seeming effort to try and be that way, which is a rare talent amongst bands trying to shoehorn in melody and failing miserably.
Midway through the record, Disdain seems to me to be the height of the album - you can hear faint nods to later Have Heart as much as you can hear Rites Of Spring. Nothing is rushed - songs approaching five minutes breathe at their own pace.
This is Landscapes taking melodic hardcore in their own direction. What it lacks in ferocity it makes up for in depth, and while the album contains the odd moment that slightly seems like a weak link in the chain (Coming Of Age perhaps) it is a very fine body of work - a lesson in self-identity. Well worth the wait.