Here we go again. Once again we have yet another young hardcore band, this time hailing from Tacoma, WA, playing overly sincere emotional overcharged hardcore. If you have heard Modern Life is War, Comeback Kid, or maybe Shai Hulud you get the gist of what Never Looking Back is trying to accomplish. If you can sense my boredom right now, you've just won yourself a prize.
I don't hate Never Looking Back, it's hard to hate on a band that obviously has their hearts in the right place. It's even harder for me to hate a band that gives out lyric explanations. That will always and forever earn a decent amount of respect no matter what style of hardcore a band wants to play. I've just heard the double bass drumming so many times it sounds like jackhammer in my skull, and not in the good way either. I've heard one too many songs where everyone piles on the singer and screams about being alone or being alive or whatever else they need to get off their chest. The mosh parts on Fragile Hearts are so predictable that your local nutty weatherperson could tell when they are coming six months ahead. And does it come to any surprise that the title track start off with an acoustic guitar, some violins, and drums that keep building and building until we hear yet another poorly played metallic riff. Every song follows the same boring mid-tempo pattern that I feel like I'm listening to the audio equivalent of Inspector Gadget cartoons. Gadget takes the case. Gadget bumbles the case. Penny and Brain solve the case. Gadget takes the credit. Dr. Claw gets away. It happened in every episode. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
I really hate to give Fragile Hearts a low score in fear of anonymous IM's from fifteen year saying, "I'm just a bitter old fart that doesn't know anything about good hardcore." True, I may be a bitter old fart but I know good hardcore when I hear it and Never Looking Back isn't it. They may have you kids moshing your collective nuts off in VFW's around Tacoma. However, here in my living room in Saint Paul I'm bored as hell. Maybe in time Never Looking Back will learn to write more interesting songs. Well one can hope, but right now I'm not looking back to Never Looking Back any time soon when I want to hear some decent hardcore.
