America is a cold, unjust place. As vast as it is cruel, the modern living experience is defined by isolation. For many, time is carved up only to be dominated by work and marked by a sense of precarity.
To live and breathe in 2023 means to question your relation to humanity and the structures our species has built for itself.
It’s against this backdrop that Massa Nera and Quiet Fear release a new collaborative LP, titled “Quatro Vientos // Cinco Soles,” through Persistent Vision on January 12, 2024.
“Quatro Vientos // Cinco Soles” on 12” vinyl and cassettes, with limited vinyl color variants available through Persistent Vision and Deathwish Inc.
Digital singles for Massa Nera’s “Bloated” and Quiet Fear’s “Presidio” is available on all digital streaming platforms since December 8.
For this release, New Jersey’s Massa Nera and Los Angeles’ Quiet Fear draw from their lived experiences to push the borders of introspective hardcore and screamo.
“The world has proven to be a scary and unjust place, but we’re gonna continue to make noise about what needs to be changed,” says Quiet Fear.
Challenging themselves to create a cohesive piece of art as separate entities, Massa Nera and Quiet Fear wrote an album with a central mandate; one that highlighted rhythm and other non-traditional elements of hardcore/punk without forgoing aggression.
Together, the bands create a unique sonic world for “Quatro Vientos // Cinco Soles” in which the listener can become fully immersed.
Using 90s-inspired screamo as the foundation for the record, Massa Nera and Quiet Fear update the style for a modern audience, weaving elements of post rock, mathcore, and even Latin rhythms into their sound.
Balancing vulnerability and fragility with moments of extreme emotional catharsis, the bands play with genres and dynamics to add weight and envelope a listener into their world.
While the darkness of the source material may belie a pessimistic worldview, the album is ultimately about worldbuilding and establishing supportive communities.
The album, titled after a creation myth, calls for embracing intentionality while rejecting the transactionality of capitalism. In the void of capitalist oppression, the bands hope grows horizontal relationships founded on mutual respect, compassion, and the exchange of ideas.
“Community is only useful if it is organized around something that generates or promotes the continued generation of capital,” Massa Nera. “If one is aware of their dual status as both a cog within the capitalist machine (worker) and driver of capitalism (consumer), it’s easy to fall into a state of utter nihilistic despair (at least, it is for us!). Connections fall by the wayside. Those that remain feel more transactional. It becomes easy to lose sight of how precious (and how fleeting) our time is. Our three songs, then, represent us succumbing to, and ultimately rejecting, nihilistic despair. It’s our attempt to reach out once more, not in the hope that doing so will serve as a panacea, but in recognition that the only way forward is side-by-side with the people we love.”
“We hope this album serves as an example for a stronger connection of the screamo and hardcore community as a whole,” says Quiet Fear. “We’re a collective of creatives striving to set the stage for any and everyone to feel like they belong. We’re trying to open the door for folks like us to never feel that this music is out of reach or not for them.”
To celebrate the release, Massa Nera will be touring California in January 2024, including release shows with Quiet Fear.
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