Band:	Ithaca
Album:	The Language Of Injury
Style:	Math metal, Metalcore
Release date:	February 01, 2019
A review by:	RaduP

01. New Covenant
02. Impulse Crush
03. Secretspace
04. Slow Negative Order
05. (No Translation)
06. The Language Of Injury
07. CLSR
08. Youth Vs Wisdom
09. Gilt
10. Better Abuse

Why have metalcore when you can have metallic hardcore with noise rock, post-rock, screamo, mathcore, industrial rock and sludge hints?

British band Ithaca have already been around for a while and have already made a name for themselves in the underground London hardcore scene, with two EPs already under their belt, and fairly large expectations from a debut. Out on Holy Roars, there's obvious similarities with label-mates Svalbard or Rolo Tomassi of them taking the hardcore sound forward in an era that desperately needs it.

The Language Of Injury, other than being a very political record, as hardcore albums often are, is one that is indeed rife with experimentation, from antithetic genre fusions to sound dynamics that make the short half-hour runtime of the album feel packed with riffs and in-your-face attitudes, but most importantly with a constant feeling of unpredictableness. With so many things thrown in the melting pot, though more care will hopefully be put in the future towards more properly stitching those together, the spontaneous and vitriolic mix of genres does actually more good than the expected harm of such a disjointed take on hardcore.

With post-rock pitted against hardcore, sludge pitted against mathcore, and noise rock pitted against screamo, all of it drenched in loud-quiet and light-dark dynamics to create a contrastful and suspenseful ride. It's raw and unapologetic. It's beautiful and vicious. It's got something to say, and you're welcome to get out if you don't like it. But as much as they got the basic formula figured out, it's clear that there's still a need for a longer gestating period before the honing of the sound is complete, in songwriting, in performance, and in production as well. But I'm glad we got to hear raw take on what will hopefully be an even more finished product.

Here's a band that finally figured out what makes hardcore so exciting and decided to take that a step further. One can only get excited for what's more to come.