Stick To Your Guns (or simply STYG) have been doing their thing for over twenty years at this point. That’s insane. I think of them as being…well, not part of a new hardcore faction, but certainly not OG’s. And that’s not me passing judgement, just basically saying they don’t feel like they’re a band in their 3rd decade of existence. Not one jot of that particular instinct that I have revolves around the band’s output or how much fire they have in their belly, I should point out. And it’s probably important to say that, as eight records in, most bands have lifted their foot off the gas to some extent. I mean, I’m probably less likely to lose my shit in quite such an unhinged fashion now than I was at 20. Time passes, people get older, fires burn with less heat and luminosity. Sucks, but it’s true.

And I’m not going to do a transparent inversion of the premise I’ve just set up, because there isn’t the same feral abandon that one might expect from a new HC band coming out of the traps for the first time for example, but this record is still pretty fucking nuts at times. It still carries the frequent, more metalcore-friendly melodic choruses, but it also has moments of unashamed, rabid frenzy. “Permanent Dark” is a 2-minute barn burner of a track, complete with d-beat, slamming riffs, insane degrees of propulsion and yet they still find time for isolated riffs, an extended ‘Bleeeeegh’ and some of the maddest drumming one could wish to hear. It’s also worth noting that there are a couple of guest spots on this record, as is the way with most HC records. And that those features come on the penultimate and final tracks of the record, delivered by Scott Vogel of Terror and Connie Sgarbossa of SeeYouSpaceCowboy, respectively. Two unquestionable luminaries of the scene, but who exist in two quite distinct and arguably, disparate parts of the scene. What this does evidence though, is the position and reverence that STYG hold at this point. It just so happens that both of the tracks are highlights of the record as well. Which is a rare thing. Leaving two of your biggest ragers to the end of the record, I mean. A pretty badass flex, to be fair.

Boiling it down to the most basic summary, it’s a 10-track hardcore record with melodic passages that might irk the HC purists among us (I’m not that keen on those moments, to be frank), but the core sound is consistently satisfying, produced superbly (shout out Beau Burchell) and with panic chords and mosh calls aplenty. My only misgiving would be that it could fall between two (or several) stools; It’s not slamming enough to be interesting to Knocked Loose fans, it’s not politically-minded enough (though it does focus on social themes) for the element of the HC community for whom that is the fundamental point of the music, and it’s a little hard for the ‘modern metalcore’ crowd. But do you know what? I think the crowd not only exists for STYG in this era, they might well be huge in number. I listen to death metal, black metal, grind, etc all the time, but when I listen to a HC record and they drop a melodic chorus? So long as I know I’m in safe hands, then I’m down with it. And I suspect that the average HC fan, whether they care to admit it or not, isn’t averse to a clean-sung (sang?), melodic chorus from time to time. It’s a palate cleanser, right?

The thing that does shine through in this record though, is that STYG are doing what they love. They’re doing it the way they like and I don’t imagine they’re chasing fans at this point. The fans will come to them. And they genuinely will. The fact that they’ve also woven a quasi-concept into the record as well, pertaining to the four elements and an admirable “be kind and make things better” ethos is also incredibly cool. Someone once opined to me that “being punk is opposing the governing powers and authority. And when the governing powers and authority have become exclusively cruel, then the most punk thing you can do is to be kind and compassionate” I think about that a lot. And although room is needed for nuance (there are malignant factions who don’t deserve kindness, frankly), I think that the message that runs through this record is a positive one and one that sits well against the modern world.

It’s not going to set the world alight maybe, but then the world is already burning, so STYG’s message is maybe more important than ever.