LOVE LETTER – Everyone Wants Something Beautiful

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7.5

• Bands:
  LOVE LETTER
• Duration: 00:39:31
• Available from: 06/28/2024
• Label:

• Iodine Recordings

When a band is made up of founding members of two pillars of melodic hardcore like Defeater and Verse, expectations can only be high. And “Everyone Wants Something Beautiful”, Love Letter's debut, does not disappoint. The album is in fact a nostalgic journey to the early 2000s, steeped in introspection and emotional fragility, all conveyed through a perfect fusion of the influences of the two parent bands.
Led by guitarist Jay Maas (formerly of Defeater) and frontman Quinn Murphy (formerly of Verse), Love Letter offer a sound that could easily belong to Defeater's discography, were it not for Murphy's charismatic and commanding presence. In fact, the album seems built to evoke the same melancholy atmospheres that have always characterized Defeater's sound, but with a more widespread and incisive tension, a legacy of Murphy's background in Verse.
The ten tracks that make up the work move on familiar terrain for fans of the genre: between a basic compactness that refers to the distant hardcore background, passing through light arpeggios, precise atmospheric drifts and a voice that often proves to be the beating heart of the the entire project. In this sense, Quinn Murphy demonstrates an extraordinary ability to convey vulnerability and anger, making every word full of meaning, exactly like in the days of records like “From Anger and Rage” or “Aggression”.
The central theme of “Everyone Wants Something Beautiful” is generational trauma, analyzed through a lens of self-awareness and vulnerability. This thematic approach finds a perfect counterpart in the music itself, which moves between moments of almost meditative quiet and bursts of energy. Tracks like “Wellness Checks and Dead Friends” and “Unhousing Projects” immediately stand out for their ability to balance melody and nervousness, with passages that seem like a manifesto of Maas' compositional ability.
The post-rock influences, a Defeater trademark, are also clearly present here: guitars that expand in crescendos and melancholic arpeggios that build a rich and layered soundscape, while on the sides the more sincere hardcore component elbows to give the album his energetic and authoritarian attitude. In short, the structures of the songs prove to be compact and direct, but there is no lack of nuances and variations to give the development various interesting ups and downs.
However, at the base there is a sense of nostalgia that pervades the entire album: for those who experienced the American hardcore scene of fifteen/twenty years ago at the forefront, the album sounds like a return home, almost like a dive into an era in which bands like Have Heart, Modern Life Is War, Killing The Dream or The Carrier dominated this particular underground musical landscape.
Love Letter is not openly aiming for a revival, but “Everyone Wants Something Beautiful” still proudly embraces that tradition, carrying it forward with honesty and conviction in an updated guise, especially in terms of sound performance. The emotional depth and quality of the writing make it a comforting first step, leaving listeners satisfied and eager to find out what the future holds for this promising project from some veterans of the scene.