Young Harts – Truth Fades LP (Various Labels)

Here’s another outstanding record from a recent batch sent by the French record label Eternalis Records. After some heavy, abrasive, energetic tones by Fenris Fuzz, it’s time to slow down the pace a little bit with some proper melodic punk rock. However, this is not a melodic punk rock you could expect nowadays. Quite the contrary, Young Harts sound unique, and their music leans more towards old-school punk rock, decorated with some complementary sonic additions. Truth Fades is one of the best debut records in this particular genre in recent years, and there’s no doubt about it. The reason why I am stating this is because of their sense of balance, composition, and dynamics, which is vividly hearable in their songs. Just add their ability for writing, composing, recording, producing catchy tunes, and you got yourself a perfect punk rock record.

Truth Fades carries ten outstanding melodic punk rock compositions that will be such a treat for those punk rockers who like their sound a bit raw but still melodic. Besides the sheer dominance of old-school melodic punk rock, Young Harts embrace the aesthetics of classic punk rock, garage punk, indie punk, and indie rock sound. Their music continuously levitates between contemporary and old-school punk rock, while the other beforementioned subgenres are coming somewhere in the middle. The thing that I mostly love about this band is the soulful, heartful, emotionally driven lead vocals and semi-distorted chord progressions that are perfectly matching throughout the entire album. The lead vocals are melodic and harmonious but also shouty and aggressive at the same time. The guitars contain the right amounts of distortion so you can hear each tone, harmony, melody, chord, and even strumming over the strings at some numbers.

The bass guitar is correctly volumed up, so Young Harts possess a healthy dosage of massive low-end tones in their sound. The bass guitar mostly keeps it simple and fills the gaps in chord progressions, but you can also hear more demanding basslines throughout the album. The excellent drumming performance keeps everything dynamic and in line with well-accentuated rhythmic segments. Young Harts clearly understand that the rhythm section is equally significant as high-end and vocals, so their understanding of how well-balanced sound works is vividly hearable on their debut full-length album. Truth Fades is an outstanding record worth checking out if you’re into melodic punk rock. The album comes on pink vinyl, and it’s a co-prod between Eternalis Records, Asso Page Blanche, Bad Mood Asso, Bad Health Records, Crapoulet Records, Dingleberry Records, Fireflies Fall, Fond Of Life Records, Inhumano Records, Joe Cool Records, K-Nardage Asso, Opposite Prod, and TimTam Records. The cassette edition is available via Pencil Records. Highly recommended release!