2 hours ago
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From London, UK
Recommended if you like Metallica, Terror, Trapped Under Ice
Up next Performing at Collision festival, Bedford, 11 April
One of the surprise success stories of the last year has been the resurgence of hardcore. From the ascent of the young, Grammy-nominated bands Turnstile and Knocked Loose to the comeback of Deftones and their fresh grip on gen Z, as well as the growth of the UK festival Outbreak, heavy guitar music is enjoying a renaissance. After releasing their debut album, Faded Intentions, in November, False Reality might seem like a new name to watch in this world – but they have deep roots.
Vocalist Rachel Rigby started out as a teenage gig promoter in Essex and London before putting on festivals in her early 20s. After a decade of witnessing a chronic lack of female representation among the countless bands she saw live, she decided to give fronting her own a shot. “I felt that it was important to send a message,” she says. “I’ve made most of my friends through hardcore; the only thing I hadn’t done was be in a band.” Her voice is a ripper: raw and upfront in the album mix, it makes the tracks feel as close to live as possible.
Guitarist Dave Connolly, the oldest member, earned his stripes in crews like Ironed Out, 50 Caliber and Bun Dem Out. They all orbit Rucktion Records, a London label that started in the late 1990s, aiming to form a comparative scene to that of New York City. London bands such as Knuckledust became local versions of New Yorkers like Madball; all in, the musical equivalent of a roundhouse kick to the head.
Drummer Louis Dale credits the Rucktion universe as his teenage entry point into the sound. “The physicality and precision of the music blew my face off, and there was also, frankly, a level of violence that I just was really interested in,” he says. “It’s dangerous and exciting.” Meanwhile, the true love of bassist Joe Cornwell, who fizzes with the energy of a kid who never grew up, is melodic metalcore by bands such as Poison the Well.
As a DIY sound that thrives off hungry newcomers, hardcore, in principle, doesn’t tend to over-prioritise legacy. But the cumulative effect of False Reality’s previous bands and their years being steeped in the sound gives Faded Intentions a real edge. After playing and moshing at thousands of shows between them, the four of them have an ear for what makes a track rip through a room with maximum impact, and a learned musicality that goes beyond the classic three-chords and beatdown formula of some of the tougher music they grew up on.
Faded Intentions is full of playful, dynamic shifts. For metalheads, there are thrash guitar solos reminiscent of early Metallica, Slayer and Arcangel, and for hardcore lifers, there are plenty of two-step parts. The music’s toughness is charged by Rigby’s ferocity. On Cost of Spite, her lyrics tear through the noise: “Suffer, set it off, trapped in unequal life.” She says it’s about “feeling anger when your hard work and passions are boiled down to your gender, skin colour or sexuality, but then breaking from that, not diluting yourself to make others comfortable.”
The most distinctive, surprising element of their music is how they bring shoegaze into the mix. Shoegaze can be crushingly loud, of course, but it’s not necessarily heavy. On tracks such as Sonder, they flood the beatdowns with distortion and melodic vocal chains. “We love that Deftones sound and worked it into our world,” says Dale. “Having an interlude is one thing, but turning shoegaze into a False Reality song is another. We want to subvert expectations of what a hardcore band should be doing. We wanted to come out with something unexpected on our debut album – and we’re proud of it.”
