tides cult album cover

"Athame" in Hand, Tides Cult Summons the Hardcore of Night

tides cult album cover

Siccing the pitch-black shadows of night upon the archetypes of hardcore isn’t a novel idea, but it’s always a damn good one — nothing deepens and extends punked-up fury like casting the resulting musical altercation into absolute darkness. And while black metal (for instance) and hardcore may comprise very different aesthetics and atmospherics, a delicate and angry set of hands and minds can wrangle the two into a special kind of abrasive cohesion. Chicago quintet Tides Cult has done just that with Your Memory Has Tarnished This Beautiful Place, their upcoming debut which finds synchrony between hardcore’s straightforward gut-punch and the abstraction that blackened styles openly welcome. Check out an exclusive stream of the album’s penultimate song “Athame” below.

Tides Cult’s potent and particular blend banks heavily on the feeling of movement, something which exists in all music but substantially so in the blackened hardcore realm. Both the ground and the air of the music, so to speak, must be in constant flux to sustain momentum — “Athame” characterizes well both the tumultuous winds of the sky and the grounds they are slowly but unceasingly polishing flat. The difference here is that while erosion is excruciatingly slow and boring, Tides Cult is most certainly not. It’s down to frequent tempo shifts, a dynamic guitar/bass interplay, and the vicious vocal performance which keep this band’s blade extremely sharp but dangerously unpredictable. Abstraction, here, is a derivative of fear, itself exacerbated by aggression (of which there’s plenty), all wrapped up under under a night-cloak not “spooky” but actually downright sinister. Halloween, please come sooner (and stay longer).

Your Memory Has Tarnished This Beautiful Place releases October 31st. Pre-orders available now via Bandcamp.

tides cult

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