On 2023’s Cerebral Circus, Initiate tapped into something special. Where their debut had shown glimmers of promise, Cerebral Circus delivered on them with bracing emotion mixed with furious riffing. It should’ve made them hardcore superstars, but for whatever reason managed to fly under radars with those in the know adoring it, but not giving them the breakout they deserved. Then, seemingly nothing until last year’s ’Too Much’ channelled despair and hopelessness at the world into a piercing, desperate cry for better, along with touring but no true follow-up. Now, though, their new EP With Love // With Rage is here, and – let’s not beat around the bush – it’s a ripper.
Part of the reason Cerebral Circus resonated so strongly was vocalist Crystal Pak’s lyricism, and With Love // With Rage continues that trend of frank openness, dissecting mental health and struggles and the split between, as its title suggests, love and rage. Musically they’re as visceral as ever; ‘Burn After Reading’ explodes out of speakers, a feedback-drenched open giving way to pummelling drums and melody-charged riffs. Its breakneck speed is complemented by melodic guitar leads.
‘Delusions’ throws crossover thrash into the mix, Pak raging, “With every hope that you quell, I pray you rot in hell / Then make this a world that I fucking hate,” while ‘Shadowboxing’ flips the mood entirely for a much more brooding, bleak view into a bitter battle with her own mind as she bellows. “Nothing behind my eyes / I just want my fucking bed / It’s a special kind of torment / When you can’t control your head.”
“That’s what makes Initiate so exciting: an ability to be something more than just angry...”
The lyrics are refreshingly blunt throughout, expressing a raw vulnerability hardcore hasn’t always been great at dealing with but Initiate manages with aplomb. It helps that guitarists Draven Carter and Manning Gray are as adept at navigating a two-step part as they are post-hardcore leads that wouldn’t sound too out of place on earlier Svalbard material. That’s something Initiate have always done well, complementing jagged hardcore with a melodic edge that complements, rather than softens, the assault.
Lead single ‘Numb the Pain’ still rips, perhaps even harder than before when it’s preceded by a slower burn, and is surprisingly gentle lyrically, intimate even, and very much focused on the “love” of the EP’s title lyrically while instrumentally being a surefire pit starter. That’s what makes Initiate so exciting: an ability to be something more than just angry, an emotional complexity at their core that makes their music easy to connect with, whilst still retaining a blistering intensity no matter the tempo. With Love // With Rage is an exciting next step for them, and hopefully we’ll be hearing more from them again before long.