The first thing that comes to mind when you press play on Church Tongue's second EP, 'You'll Know It Was Me', is going to be something along the lines of "Jesus CHRIST that's heavy!". Caught in the caustic sweet spot that's nestled between Knocked Loose, God Complex, No Cure and Burner, Church Tongue have conjured up an unholy abomination that takes all the best bits of metallic hardcore, black metal, and death metal, before pumping them into six songs all about the most obvious topic in the world for a band like this - love?
'You'll Know It Was Me' is more than just an incredibly potent distillation of a new face in hardcore's big leagues - it's also a collection of songs that focuses on the above theme of love, in all manner of different ways. As guitarist Nicko Calderon explains; “Mike [Sugars, vocalist] wanted to write about the different kinds of love and the different ways that you can love - for example, loving yourself enough to end a toxic friendship, or loving yourself enough to become sober. And the very last song is quite literally a love song for him and his wife, about how if he dies before her, he will haunt her forever.”
Opening the EP is the rather aptly named 'Heart Of Darkness'. With plenty of the modern metallic hardcore sound we know and love, Sugars has plenty of space to project howls atop the ballistics programme of instrumentals underneath his vocals. Track two flows in a similar vein, with 'One Hand Wrapped Around The Sun' taking barely a minute and a half to rend the flesh from your face and leave you looking like a certain bunch of box opening scumbags from an Indiana Jones movie.
Two of the three features on the release come as a one-two punch, with tracks three and four both containing some extra help. The first of the two is 'When It Betrays' which features Colin Young, who not only drums for God's Hate but also does vocals for Twitching Tongues. Church Tongue gave Young total freedom to write all his own lyrics for his vocal parts, and what returned in the post included a line from Twitching Tongues’ 'Feed Your Disease'.“When he sent his part over,” reminisces Calderon, “and we heard and read the 'Feed Your Disease' line, we just couldn’t believe that he was gracing us with it. We’ve been fans of God’s Hate and Twitching Tongues for a long time, and actually took a lot of inspiration from Twitching Tongues with this EP, so we didn’t feel worthy. We feel like it should go to somebody more deserving. But we are very thankful for it.”
Track four, 'The Fury Of Love', also has some back up in the vocal department, with Initiate's Crystal Pak lending a hand with her own abrasive screams above the pinnacle of the crescendo within the track. With black metal moments abound here, there's plenty to latch onto - whether you're here for pure brutality or for technicality. The only complaint here would be to give us more - those last seconds with Pak's vocals are all too good to last for such a short time!
Lead single 'Bury Me (One Thousand Times) makes its entrance at the penultimate spot on the track list, and does its damnedest to make it impossible to forget exactly where it is. The bruising breakdown, icy riffs, acidic screaming and even the brief lulls all come together into a devastating combination of music that is as apocalyptic in its heaviness as it is enticing in its draw to headbang.
The last track is, as stated by Calderon, a love song about Sugars haunting his wife if he dies first. Featuring the third and final guest of the EP, the title track brings George Clarke of Deafheaven into the fold. Sugars' repeated bellows of "You'll know it was me" ring out and burrow to the very pit of your stomach, before Clarke's unearthly voice joins the fray. Already an atmospheric and eery song that's full of weight, his coiling shrieks and vampiric screams open the gates to an onslaught of aggression and heaviness. The duo's vocals trade sonic blows across each eardrum, fighting a war for dominance where the only casualty is your hearing. As the song fades out, the pervading feeling is that of surviving an artillery attack or the passing of some eldritch being.
'You'll Know It Was Me' is a sensational effort across the board. The riffs and breakdowns hit like trucks, the EP is a lyrically potent piece throughout, every beat of the drums has been thought out in order to provide maximum power, every howl and grimace rings through your ears, and the all features are all different and all stunningly good. Are we listening to EP of the year already? The jury is out, but the odds are good - and if they show up on Out Of Rage's end of year list then 'You'll Know It Was Me' who put them there.
'You'll Know It Was Me' will be released on February 14th 2025 via Pure Noise Records.
Words: Jake Longhurst
Photos: Church Tongue
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