I have said, often and loudly, that I don’t like screamo. And I don’t mean screamo as a catchall term for any music with screaming in it, like your mom uses it, but as a distinct branch of emo and hardcore heralded by bands like Orchid, pg.99, and Saetia. I’ve proclaimed for years that it’s too abrasive and tuneless for my tastes.

Exceptions were made, of course, for envy. And Boneflower. And Chalk Hands. And Birds in Row. And…actually you know what, maybe I do like screamo. Because recently, I’ve found a few skramz records that I really love. One that was introduced to me recently was Survival / Sickness, the debut record from Crowning out of Chicago, a cathartic fury so explosive that it lasts a mere eighteen minutes before burning out. Still, it packs in more energy in that short runtime than several albums three times its length.

Survival/Sickness has all the blistering moments you’d expect from a screamo record: throat-shredding vocals, discordant guitars, rapidfire drums, and no quarter given. Still, there are plenty of moments of uneasy stillness that punctuate the onslaught.

There are moments of post-rocky atmosphere and dynamics, like in the middle of “Airwaves” or the opening build of the title track. But many of the more ambient moments on the disc feel more industrial, like the opening loop of “Caldera” that introduces the album or the dark swells of the interlude “Vantablack.” It reminds me of Heriot’s Profound Morality in that regard if it burst into screamo instead of metalcore.

The closing track “Firmament” delivers textbook skramz the way that Saetia fans always try to sell that group’s trademark cacophony: the track is positively blistering, offering an emotional onslaught so raw that it can’t be confined by consistent tempos or time signatures. It shifts between rhythms like the cadence of a late-night rant fueled by coffee and sleep deprivation before it closes with a grim spoken word slogan.

Newcomer that I am to skramz, I feel ill-equipped to speak about it with any sort of intelligence or authority. Luckily, that’s not a prerequisite to be moved by this passionate quarter-hour. If you’re a screamo fan, definitely check this out. If you’re not, maybe you should try it too.