Is Survived By

After a bracing EP and two genre-revitalizing LPs, nothing was the same for Los Angeles post-hardcore band Touché Amoré going into Is Survived By. Lead singer Jeremy Bolm’s got a lot on his mind-- He’s concerned about what his third album will mean for his legacy as an artist and whether he’s focused too much on what he does rather than who he is. He sees the replication of his father’s shortcomings in his current relationships, but realizes his old man did the best he could. Fake friends are forgiven and then quickly forgotten as Bolm starts to like who he’s becoming. Or, in short, Touché Amoré started from the bottom and the whole team’s fuckin’ here on the superlative Is Survived By, including Balance & Composure’s Jon Simmons, Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra and revered indie producer Brad Wood.

Granted, it’s unlikely that Is Survived By will divert the attention of Drake listeners this week even if they’d find plenty of thematic similarities. But it’s not impossible and Touché Amoré appear keenly aware that Is Survived By has them poised to reach beyond a fanbase that can be described as “hardcore” one way or the other. For the most part, Bolm is trying to maintain some sort of grace while kinda freaking out about the situation-- “you can call this coming clean or a repeat of what you know/ about the struggles I once had as I’m learning to let go”, goes the frantic introduction of “To Write Content.” He tips his hand with the mere title of “Social Caterpillar” and assures the listener, “don’t worry I still get dizzy in the usual situations.” Sure, he was still pulling hours at a Burbank record shop this year, but as the frontman for an intensely loved and meaningful punk band, he gets put in a lot of unusual situations for the typical guy.

For example, the one he encounters on opener “Just Exist”, where someone inquires how he’d “like to be remembered”, the sort of question typically asked of, say, Drake. His answer becomes the sole joke on an album of almost superhuman sobriety-- “I simply smiled and said ‘I’d rather stay forever.’” By the song’s end, he figures out the trick is in the title (“you’ll never know much of the truth/so I’ll just exist”) and as insular as Bolm’s concerns may be, Touché Amoré veer towards accessibility in all aspects on Is Survived By.

Bolm still maintains the same jagged wail that got Touché Amoré (not wrongfully) tagged as “screamo” at the outset-- all grit and serration, no affectation-- and the band provides plenty of max-chaos-per-second supercolliders in the form of “DNA” and “Blue Angel". Only this time, they’re placed in the context of these funny things called “songs.” Some of them run up to three whole minutes and beyond, some are slow and even pretty in a twinkly emo kind of way (“To Write Content”, “Non Fiction”), some are love songs and all of them are produced with clarity and precision by a guy whose big credits are for Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins and Sunny Day Real Estate records that are older than a lot of the kids I see at Touché Amoré shows.

Is Survived By is about 50% longer than any other Touché Amoré album and the quintet wisely instruct the listener how to pace themselves. The near a cappella “Praise/Love” and near post-rock instrumental “Non Fiction” would be remarkable for introducing variety alone; in the scheme of Is Survived By, they’re plot devices, introducing lyrical and musical motifs repeated immediately thereafter in “Anyone/Anything” and “Steps". These tracks jolt the listener right back with choruses that go outside the scope of “melodic hardcore” into a bruised and spittle-flecked pop-punk that comes awfully close to radio-friendly, even if you’ll never hear it at Warped Tour.

In essence, it’s an excellent band continuing to be excellent with more people paying attention. They haven’t lost sight of what got them here, however the band downplays their own virtuosity by emphasizing a studied recklessness, cranking out one anthemic riff after another, providing a familiar melodic framework that just skirts total recall. They serve as a setting for a frontman who barks out words that take the shape of narratives and conversations rather than poetry. In particular, “Harbor” and “To Write Content” are story-songs as well as cerebral exercises based upon the multiple (mis)readings of their titles. On the latter, Bolm meets Hull for the first time through mutual friends in New York and communes over a common concern shared by an LA punk band and a southern, grungy emo act-- can your personal happiness be an artistic liability?

There is a lot of “I” and “me” on Is Survived By, but it focuses on the social utility of the self, that a content person is more likely to make a positive difference. On the closing title track, Bolm implores the listener to “write a song that everyone can sing along to/ so when you’re gone, you can live on/they won’t forget you.” It’s easy to meet that statement with cynicism: surely, our society would be better off if fewer people believed they were a special little snowflake with a song that needs to be heard, right? But if you haven’t seen Touché Amoré live, you should, in part because it provides the proper visual-- the raw-throated, stone-faced man you hear on Is Survived By is liable to appear cleancut, constantly smiling even and he knows his band would be nothing without you. “Is Survived By” is pretty much an audio thank you note. The physicality of Is Survived By is more like a bear hug than an ass-kicking, wherein the passion can be scary at first, but it’s disarming, done out of love. They take this stuff seriously because this, right here, matters. You matter. And within these songs is the struggle in realizing that self-esteem comes more from estimable acts than outside validation. Is Survived By should receive plenty praise anyway, but Touché Amoré lead by example.