Death Of Youth – Some Demons Never Die CD (Various Labels)

Death Of Youth are familiar faces in the underground circles and certainly not strangers to these pages. I previously wrote an article about their earlier recording Suburban Dystopia, released ona 10″ vinyl record a while ago by Engineer Records. This time, Engineer Records teamed up with Sonicslap Records and Disillusioned Records to release a collection of demo recordings on compact disc and digital. This collection contains the first demo named Between Chapters and the beforementioned Suburban Dystopia, which represents a second demo recording. If you’re not familiar with their music, you can expect something between contemporary emo and modern hardcore, blended all together in polyphonous harmony.

Death Of Youth are famous for their abilities to convey emotions through a combination of melancholic melodies, delicate harmonizations, and raw aggression. These elements are thoughtfully assembled into perfectly structured modern hardcore compositions with a touch of contemporary emo added through meaningful lyrics. The group handles both calmy and aggressive sides of their music throughout both demo recordings and balances these polarities with such ease. You’ll notice a lot of similarities with Defeater, More Than Life, Touche Amore, La Dispute, Departures, Counterparts, State Faults, Casey in their music, but these are just comparisons so you’ll get the idea of their sound. Death Of Youth are certainly a hidden gem that demands and unquestionably deserves your attention, mainly because of their bright ideas and excellent musicianship.

Guitars are dueling for dominance through robust guitar shreds on one side and melancholic melodies on the other. Their dueling creates such a pleasant atmosphere worth listening to thousand of times, so you won’t find it difficult to spin this gem repeatedly for a while. Warm-sounding low-end tones are punching from beneath through cleverly arranged basslines. The bass guitar liberates enough power to the atmosphere, so you’ll not even notice this is a collection of demo recordings. The rhythm section is nicely produced and composed to fit the arrangements of these ear-appealing tunes. Lead vocals are somewhere between screaming and shouting, so you’ll be pleasantly surprised how these chants are layering melancholic melodies. Every instrument appears as a wrecking layer that will shake your bones, just in the way the modern hardcore should sound nowadays.

This will be right up the alley to the admirers of modern melodic hardcore with touches of emo and screamo sound. Some Demons Never Die is available on compact discs and streaming services. Head over to Engineer Records, Sonicslap Records, or Disillusioned Records for more detailed information about ordering.