Bailer – Disposable Youth | Album Review

Ireland probably isn’t the first place you think of when the topic of hardcore bands – particularly emerging ones – comes up. Bailer are angling to change all that; with a string of EPs to their name as well as support slots with the likes of Norma Jean, Sick Of It All and Malevolence, they’ve steadily garnered attention in hardcore circles ahead of this, their debut album. Disposable Youth is a hulking beast of a record with a few things that set it apart from its peers. 

The first is that the album was written in their jam space, each member contributing parts to enhance the song or take it to its next stage. It lends a free-flowing, barely-controlled chaos to the songs that’s just about kept in check though at several moments, it does threaten to go off the rails. Secondly, the production duties are handled by Lewis Johns (Employed To Serve, Conjurer, Rolo Tomassi) so it sounds huge right from the outset. The production is modern but it’s careful not to polish the rough edges off their sound to leave a rawness to the tracks so they sound like nihilistic catharsis.

Opening with ‘Blackout’, Bailer drag you into their world immediately with crushingly heavy guitars and Alex O’Leary’s vitriolic bark. It’s a short, sharp shock at barely two and a half minutes and is immediately followed by the even shorter, sharper ‘Bastard Son’ that rages non-stop across its sub-two minute run time. Frantic drumming that approaches blast beat territory is married with a meaty beatdown that threatens to cave in skulls amidst squealing guitars. The band carry this aggression across the album’s front half, barely letting their foot off the pedal; ‘Out Of Frame’ is a runaway freight train of a song and ‘Cruel Master’ employs a juddering breakdown that threatens to swallow up all in its path. 

At not much over half an hour, with the style of hardcore they play, Bailer do approach running too long but just skirt round it thanks to not only the sheer violence and commanding presence of their songs but the back near fifteen minutes are some of the most varied on Disposable Youth. Those final songs, ‘No Apologies’, ‘There Is A Love That Remains’ and ‘Fester’ flirt with crossover in the first, almost sludge without losing the punk snarl in the second while ‘Fester’ threatens to overwhelm with its thunderous low end chug. 

While the bulk of Disposable Youth is metallic hardcore, there’s several elements that Bailer throw in to make it their own, including the aforementioned moments of sonic variety. The bass work in particular deserves noting; there’s a fuzzy quality that skirts doom and sludge without losing its bite and it underpins the band’s sound throughout, anchoring them at their slowest (‘Fester’) and their most chaotic hardcore, Converge-worshipping moments. As debuts go, it’s a blistering statement from intent that deserves to put not only Bailer, but Ireland’s hardcore scene on the map.