Album Review: …When A Clenched Fist Is No Longer An Option

Hardcore is having a moment. At the bleeding edge, Turnstile have recently parlayed the breakout success of 2021’s Glow On into mainstream acclaim with their recent record-cum-visual album Never Enough. Likewise, Australia’s Speed have bought a level of excitement to the scene, drawing on their Asian heritage and references to their hometown of Sydney for lyrics and mosh calls.

But behind leading lights are regional scenes all over the world consistently putting forward great bands for hardcore fans to enjoy. Each success is then metabolised and feeds back into the scene. New bands, festivals, and zines and spawned, and more people get excited about coming out to shows. It’s a dialect, a virtuous cycle.

Similarly in Aotearoa, bands like Martial Law and Lucre have bought a new generation into the scene and new bands have sprung up in their wake all over the country. Further, new fests like Summer of Hardcore and Start Today Fest have been added to established fixtures like Hamtown Smakdown, catering to fans young and old.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that New Zealand hardcore, or NZHC, is having a renaissance.

Enter Standover. Self-described “old dogs” of the scene, the band features members from Forced to Submit, Damaged, Demonstrate, Saving Grace, and Vicissitude, to name just a few. Standover debuted with the EP No Space is Safe in 2023 and have since been pummelling audiences with their aural onslaught. Now they are back with the full length …When A Clenched Fist is No Longer an Option, released via Australia’s Gutter Prince Cabal.

It might be a cliché to say a band sounds unrelenting, but when you’re stomped on repeatedly this much over ten tracks there is no other word for it. The production on this album is tight, and every element is tuned to give the listener no mercy. Most of the instruments are very forward in the mix to explosive effect. The riffs have an almost Entombed-like buzzsaw tone while structurally the songs draw heavily on ‘90’s metallic hardcore – the likes of Kickback, Hatebreed, and Ringworm.

On songs like The Noose you’re treated to heavy doses of both thrash skanks and groovy breakdowns. End You, the albums lead single, features a surprisingly bluey guitar solo. More dissonate leads abound throughout the rest of the record.

A highlight is Forever Contempt, a blistering cover of Promise of Bloodshed, from their 2003 NZHC classic Hatred Inherit. Personally, the standout track is the closer, Slave, which builds from midtempo two-steps to one of the most crushing breakdowns this side of 1996.

Lyrically, the themes pick up where the album title leads off. The clenched fist is a ubiquitous sign of protest the world over. It’s a powerful symbol – five fingers coming together for a singular purpose, able to achieve collectively than they could on their own. But what happens in a world where collective action is frustrated at every turn, and where we seem more atomised than ever? How do we contend with what Mark Fisher called the “slow cancelation of the future”.

In that vein, these are songs about the frustration of living in this world. The opening track Gloom is a meditation on the hopelessness of life and the obliteration of death; with vocalist Rhys Owen unspooling his thoughts on the subject:

“Awakened from a slumber of slime,

Are my thoughts really mine?

Who is this I see? Is it me?

I’ve been bought low… as low as the worm.

Metaphysical divination,

Psychological devastation.

Forever…”

Watch It Burn includes a sample of then Minister of Health and State Services Chris Hipkins expressing his disappointment at a leak of Covid-19 patient details by other politicians in July 2020. If we can’t trust our elected representatives to do right by us and rise above petty point scoring during a global crisis, who can we trust? “No value put on life / We’re all fucking doomed,” replies Owen.

Overall, …When A Clenched Fist is No Longer an Option is an excellent debut LP and mandatory listening for hardcore, and heavy music fans in general, in Aotearoa. Let’s hope this is just the first entry in a new cannon of classic LPs to come out of the NZHC renaissance.