To understand what This Ends Here are all about, Afterwards EP needs to be taken as a whole: it is a varied, chaotic and emotional journey. With its roots in the emotional hardcore/epic crust of bands such as Artimus Pyle, Ekkaia and Geranium, it aims to deal with the fact that the world is fucked and needs fixing, without adopting the simple extremes of nihilistic pessimism or twee optimism of some bands. In the space of 10 minutes it goes from brutal riffage, uplifting anthems to melancholic soundscapes, representing musically the feeling that life is too complex for simple solutions. Although rarely extreme in it’s sound, it offers an mixture of styles that lays down a musical challenge: if you’re not prepared to be open-minded you’re not going to like this, and that’s the point.Undefeated: signature TEH song and live favourite, kicks off with blistering d-beat, then drops into a hefty doom riff, comparatively short and sweet.Resignation: brutal hardcore intro breaks into melodic guitar line then builds to an anthemic crescendo. Lyrics cover disillusionment with a crust scene that would hate a song that sounds like this, with the closing lines “this is not what I fought for, you treat me just like them.”Cattlegrid: one minute of crust/d-beat afloat in four minutes of feedback and atmospheric emotional hardcore. The final, blackened soundscapes perhaps indicating where the future lies for TEH.
