It has often been considered sacrilege to call any punk rock band a “screamo” band, but there is no denying that whether first wave pioneers such as Orchid or Antioch Arrow dismissed the use of the term, it certainly helped identify a magnificent scene of bands. With the second wave that came in the late 2000’s, bands were happier to embrace the term to some degree. The Saddest Landscape, Pianos Become The Teeth, Touche Amore, and countless others wore the influence of the scene proudly, but none embraced it as fully as Sweden’s Suis La Lune.
Their critically acclaimed ‘Riala’ LP, released by Topshelf Records in 2012 was a caustic, dense body of work with incredibly accomplished playing, and after widespread touring, the band went fairly quiet. Now in 2015 the band have reformed their original line-up – with the exception of guitarist Karl Slado and drummer Daniel Petterson switching roles – and come out of hibernation with a new EP ‘Distance / Closure’, which was recorded by the band themselves, and sees them amplify every melodic and intense element that made their sound so potent in the first place.
While before, Suis La Lune relied on relatively short bursts of frantic melodic hardcore, they have ventured into a more expansive territory, as the four songs here nearly reach the 30-minute mark, but it has given the band a way to cover more ground. A serene introduction builds up ‘A Different Perspective’ before it explodes into a visceral wall of noise midway through the track, twisting between clean lead lines and lightening quick hails of distortion that are carried by vocalist/guitarist Henning’s larynx-shredding screams. This unrelenting sound remains ever present through ‘Endless Cycle’, which is utterly ferocious in it’s delivery as they utilise off-kilter time signatures, but never sounding messy or disjointed.
The overall feel of ‘Distance / Closure’ is far darker, and flaunts a harder edge than the bands previous work, yet still remains a Suis La Lune record. The influence of iconic bands Raein, La Quiete, and Diatro is still there, however a track like ‘Better Parts’ is not something that any of those bands would have done, and is recognisable as only a Suis La Lune song. It is a testament to the bands ability how they are able to stay original in a genre that sometimes finds artists not moving on from the foundation that was laid before them. It is also a bold statement that they would choose to end the EP with and 11-minute opus in the form of ‘Within’, yet they execute it flawlessly, as it hits you from every angle throughout its duration.
Hopefully this is a sign of what lies ahead for Suis La Lune, and reverting to their original line-up has evidently spark a new creative lease of life within the Swedish quartet. You can call it screamo, punk rock, or melodic hardcore, but whichever genre you wish to classify ‘Distance / Closure’ and Suis La Lune as, they are undoubtedly masters of their own unique art.
GLEN BUSHELL