Troubled Coast - Letters (2011)

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A few days of pause with writing due to me preparing my final exam, yet there  are still two more shows from my trip to be reviewed. In the meantime, once again I decided to splash a band between gig related posts, simply because all the band submissions are beginning to pile up a lot. And additionally, the fact that this band really caught my attention immediately once I listened to it this morning, so an extreme urge to share it exploded in my head.

"Troubled Coast" is a quartet from East San Francisco Bay Area, California. This melodic/post hardcore act has been active from the year 2009, yet despite their young age as a band they have been constantly active and pumping out releases. The initial year of their birth saw the release of their 10'' LP named "100 Miles From Home" which came out on "Creator-Destructor Records" in December. Only a few months later they returned to the studio and recorded "Vagabonds EP" which was self-released. Finally, in late 2010 the band entered the rehearsal room once again and by March 2011 this, latest, album was recorded and released.
As you can see, quite a turbulent and productive band history. Judging by Cory, guitarist of "Troubled Coast" and the dude who contacted me about a possible review, the band went through sound metamorphosis with each new album during which they added a more melodic tone to their music and adding additional layers of harmonies and depth that set them apart from being just a standard hardcore project. Sadly I didn't listen to their pre-"Letters" material, but listening to this album now really makes me want to check out their previous work.
So, what is it that you actually get to hear on "Letters"? Imagine a combination of pop punkish melodies from a band such as "Title Fight" and song structures like we can hear on "Touche Amore" releases, having the lyrical concepts of "La Dispute" yet with a more aggressive approach of "Verse". And this is all just talking in a nutshell. The cool thing however is that while listening to "Troubled Coast" you can witness just a glimpse of these influences, since most of the time the band sounds overtly different and unique. Additionally, this album is quite hard to grasp and describe in its entirety, since it is packed with songs that are various in style even to one another. It is enough to listen to a couple of tracks and you very well become aware of the fact that you will need to go over and over throughout the whole release to experience it fully. So for example, the opening track named "Amends" is a sort of buildup song featuring some coarse vocals and pack screaming, which melds toward the second song titled "Wolf Republic", which keeps swinging between being melodic and aggressive with the vocal calming down and becoming more of a half screamed, half spoken one. Both of these are less then two minutes in length, so "Breathing" kicks in and introduces a longer type of song and an even further change in the vocal which now becomes gentle and almost whisper like. So as I said, during the course of only a few tracks you get to hear that the band likes to experiment with their songs a lot. Throughout the entire album, featuring thirty eight minutes of music by the way, the song structures are complex and diverse without a single song being similar to another one. "Letters" even includes some guest appearances which manage to spice up the album even further.
As I have only a handful of bands within these genres, "Troubled Coast" came as a welcome addition to the basket and quite an entertaining one. My wish to share this release as soon as possible probably crippled this review a bit, since I am certain that I would actually need a few days of listening to have a solid critique opinion about it and point out all the highlights, which are abundant believe me. But one thing is for certain and that is that I really enjoy this album and it will grow on me even further in those upcoming days. Definitely check these guys out and judging by their performance thus far we are most likely for more surprises in the future. Enjoy!