Soulkeeper "Join Us In Creating Excellence" EP 12"

White Vinyl. 

"Listen back to Soulkeeper’s discography and there’s a clear sense of progression. Their early EPs had a mischievous disregard for genre, mixing hardcore, metalcore, deathcore, nu-metal, electronics and a bucketful of attitude into a style that has the deliberate messiness of a spaghetti junction. Their debut album “Holy Design” continued the journey, adding layers to the weird soundscapes, all held together by Eric Roberts’s vicious vocals. “Join Us In Creating Excellence” picks up that chaotic collage and pushes it even harder. The results are; A) Awesome; and B) Completely insane.

Describing why “Join Us In Creating Excellence” works is difficult. A lot happens, but it’s not just a series of different sounds smushed together. It’s more like a radio carefully tuning between stations. Imagine a blend of Johnny Booth, Spiritbox and Car Bomb, or The Callous Daoboys playing hardcore, or if Knocked Loose really tried to collaborate with Poppy. However, because the songs are constructed with such care and skill, what could be a car crash of noise is more like a driver shifting through gears and weaving through obstacles to find a strong racing line.

With producer Jonathan Dolese in the driving seat, the band find a way to keep their music tasteful, which is surprising given what they’re working with. In fact, when they describe their music as containing “dissonant nonsense”, it’s both accurate and insightful. While the most intense track, “Smile Because It Happened”, is a battering of detuned riffs, clanky snares and robotic vocals, it feels like a statement – this is what hardcore can be. Similarly, while “Reality Bytes” opens with a sampled groove and spends half its runtime as a glitchy canvas for Roberts to yell over, inertia drags it towards hardcore, adding to the EP’s sense of purpose.

For all its chaos, the only time the songs are jarring are when they absolutely mean to be, like on the title track, which yanks the handbrake and powerslides into an electronically-tuned pop song. It’s a choice that’s wildly unexpected yet strangely effective, taking the place of a more traditional breakdown. In the same way, “Go Ask Alice” plunges from being a frantic hardcore assault into an oppressive, ambient soundscape, only to come ploughing back, a curveball that hits like a motorist who’s jumped the lights. Like everything here, it makes a huge impact." - Ian K