In 2018, I was part of the team organizing Bloodline Fest here in South Bend. While we were talking to idle threat about playing, they asked if there was a space for their friends Khamsin, who they were touring with. And boy am I glad there was. They looked to be fresh out of high school, but as soon as they started playing, it brought me back to my own teenage years, playing a brand of introspective post-hardcore reminiscent of As Cities Burn, Brand New, mewithoutYou, and Beggars-era Thrice.
As strong as that initial performance was though, it barely scratched the surface of what they would achieve on their debut full-length, What’s Left of Life? Those same influences are present, but not derivative as much as an accent in their own voice. And they use that voice to tell a story of grief and loss that’s as raw as it is tender.
From the opening sparse strums of “Dye Front” until the cathartic riffyness that closes the track, Khamsin makes their intentions of where the record is going crystal clear. They deftly shift between delicacy and hardness like the shifts between sorrow and rage that grief brings. And as the record goes on, they never miss a step. Their sound is familiar, but not in a derivative way. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was a forgotten release from the Tooth & Nail catalog. This is especially true of “Sycamore Tree,” a track rife with biblical metaphor while the band plays a groove that recognizes that mewithoutYou is way more than Aaron Weiss’s vocals.
As strong as the instrumental performances are on their own, the record’s true strength is in the gravity of Jacob Curry’s lyrics as they recount the loss of his father and the crises of faith and identity he had in the aftermath. Some superficial listeners might hear the cracks in his voice as he jumps between soft croons to full-throated choruses to half-screams and dismiss him, but those who take the time to hear the lyrics will hear it as another dimension of the story he’s telling. The images he paints cover the whole of the album, with phrases repeated across multiple songs. Closer “Follow” even repeats the refrain of “Dye Front,” giving an uneasy bookend to the record. Even through everything he processes in the nine tracks here, he ends in the same place he began, lacking any real closure. And such is the reality of grief. “Should I settle into normal by now?” he asks, but both he and the listener knows full well that there isn’t an easy answer to that question.
It’s often said that great art—art that means something—has pain behind it. The mark of an artist is how they use their medium to both express that hurt and process through it. And on What’s Left of Life, Khamsin has turned the loss of a father into a piece of music that means something. It’s as moving and expressive a record as I’ve heard, without being unbearably dour. Rather, we are invited to walk alongside as Curry figures out what life looks like now.