Revelation Records – 20 May 2022
Listening to this EP makes me feel less alone (FFO: melodic hardcore with a raw emotional edge)
Frankly, no one is doing melodic hardcore as well as Be Well.
This DC-area supergroup was founded by singer Brian McTernan in the wake of Battery’s second split. He’s backed by members of heavyweights like Darkest Hour, Bane and Fairweather. In 2020, the band released their debut LP The Weight and the Cost to great acclaim through Equal Vision Records. Earlier this year, they returned with their follow up EP Hello Sun on Revelation Records. On opening track “Treadless”, McTernan passionately declares, “I’m treadless and spinning / I just don’t know where I should begin” before the band gallops into this acutely relatable song about struggling with depression. In the chorus, McTernan begs, “Help me find myself / I’ve spent so long wishing that I was someone else”.
On “I’ll Leave You With This”, McTernan contemplates his legacy in the music industry. If you’re unfamiliar with McTernan’s curriculum vitae as a record producer, I would recommend that you review his credits, as he’s likely been manning the nobs of most of your favorite records. McTernan colors the song with imagery from inside the recording studio, like “There are notes with delay / That crystallize our darkest days”.
The EP ends with “In the Shadow of Who You Thought I Was”, perhaps the band’s only misstep. The song is a well written track about McTernan’s struggles with mental health, but it doesn’t match the crescendo the band has built up to thus far, and falls short of the intensity on The Weight and the Cost’s closer “Confessional”.
I’d almost prefer to hear the stellar title track close the EP, as this mid-tempo banger highlights everything that Be Well excels at. Shane Johnson’s cavernous drums manage to blur the line between song foundation and lead instrumentation. Within this construct, guitarists Mike Schleibaum and Peter Tsouras use octaves and harmonics to create a net to catch McTernan, who bares his soul over verse and soaring chorus. It is spectacular.
All told, this is a stellar hardcore release that is accessible to fans of diverse genres, including emo, indie and pop punk. If your algorithm hasn’t recommended this to you yet, queue it up now (and get a better algorithm).
Once hailing from the salty tundra of Syracuse, NY, Ben now calls the DC suburbs his home. He fell in love with punk after listening to Punk-O-Rama 3, Less Than Jake and MXPX in middle school. He loves to slam dance but is too large to stage dive.
When he’s not pretending to have exquisite musical taste, he’s raising two children, designing RPG products and practicing law. (Who knows if he’ll ever get the hang of it.)
