hopesfall

Record #970: Hopesfall – The Satellite Years (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Let me offer up a disclaimer: there are tons of people for whom this is a foundational record. I am not one of them. My introduction to Hopesfall was 2018’s Arbiter, but their back catalogue was rife with prohibitively high vinyl prices (my Achilles’ heel). When I saw them at Furnace Fest in 2021 though, it made me a believer. It might have taken a bit for me to pull the trigger on this (pricey) reissue, but I’m glad I did.

Where much of the Christian-adjacent early 2000’s metalcore has not aged very well, The Satellite Years might actually look better in the light of hindsight, thanks to a generous amount of HUM style space rock punctuating their riffs and breakdowns (and yeah, Matt Talbot even produced it).

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Record #754: In Parallel – Fashioner (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As much as I love old-school shoegaze and new wave, I might enjoy it just as much when the punks lay down their aggressive downstrokes and power chords to reappropriate those sounds and moods in earnest.

Granted, neither Hopesfall nor Celebrity have exactly shied away from integrating these retro influences in their brands of post-hardcore. Even at their heaviest, they’ve retained a sense of tunefulness and melancholy that recall bands like New Order, My Bloody Valentine, and of course The Cure.

But when members of those projects join forces to delve more sincerely honor those influences, the result is magical.

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2019: A Year In Review

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 2 Comments

As we sit on the cusp of a new year—and a new decade—it’s become customary to look back and quantify all of the music produced into a neat little list of what’s noteworthy.

While these lists are always bound to vary from person to person and between publications, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much variation as in 2019. This year was an undeniable banner year for music, with excellent release after excellent release piling up relentlessly without ceasing. If you slipped behind, there was no hope of catching up.

As I look back on the year, I keep being surprised by all the stuff I missed—either ubiquitous barn burners like Lizzo or Lana Del Ray’s NFR or artists I love like Solange and Deerhunter. Even among releases I loved and purchased, quantifying all of it into a top ten list proved a much more difficult task than most years.

And so, as much as I stand by this list, I’m fully aware how flawed a ranked top whatever format is for describing just how magnanimous this year’s musical output was.

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Record #565: Hopesfall – Arbiter (2018)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Despite my love of mid-2000s Christian post-hardcore (exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C…it goes on), I had somehow missed Hopesfall during their heyday. I remember hearing the name tossed around, but I always lumped them into the same pile of hyped bands that I didn’t have any interest in, like Haste the Day, As I Lay Dying, August Burns Red, etc. (someone is going to tell me I need to listen to them now, I can feel it).

So when a friend recommended their most recent release, I was expecting a warmed over Underoath clone (their place on the Equal Vision roster didn’t help).

I was absolutely not expecting the best mix of hardcore and space rock this side of Cave In.  Continue reading →