When we interviewed GLAARE back in 2018, outside of the now demolished Tonic Lounge in Portland, we were not prepared for the live show we were about to see — the energy of the flashing lights and the fierce movements of the band were not quite what we expected from a project that is so steeped in the dreamy atmosphere of post-punk synth music. For me, it reframed their first album, To Deaf and Day, in a way that shifted from darkly dreampop, to a kind of sinister vulnerability. Tracks like “Ruins,” which start punchy and active are overtaken by a stressed and almost painfully maudlin performance by not only lead singer Rachel Pierce, but the rest of the band too. Perhaps I’m nostalgic for live shows, after a long year of streaming concerts and festivals, but when the new GLAARE album was announced, all the excitement and intensity of their performance flooded back to me.
Your Hellbound Heart has a bright and grotesque cover. Not Pharmakon grotesque, where the sweaty bodies pile over each other and give me a sticky, queasy feeling, but the washed out neon grotesque of a late-80s digital underground. Fingers in a pink mouth, aggressively. It’s an image that fits the album musically, but also communicates so much of the themes in each song. Love and vulnerability, aggression and for-better-or-worse, aging and that feeling when you just want to leave town forever.
From the first moments of “Young Hell,” it is clear the production is huge. The blend of post-punk, heavy reverberated guitar, noisy atmospheric pads, and electronic drums — something that was so key to the sound of To Deaf and Day — has been fine-tuned to an almost overwhelming wash of glamorous tension.
Post-punk, which has been going through a decade-long explosion in popularity, does not quite describe GLAARE. In the same way that bands like Hante. or All Your Sisters have shifted into something more unique than the larger scene label, Your Hellbound Heart feels characteristically unconcerned with sticking to the conventional wisdoms of what you might think of as post-punk. On “Divine Excess,” for example, the synth melody is much closer to computer-music or bedroom-pop than the big washy synths used on “Young Hell,” or the more guitar driven, classic sound of “Mirrors.” Then, a track like “Buyers Remorse” will hit and, while it sometimes feels out of place next to previous tracks, it bangs. The trance gate that leads the track is layered on and subverted by more and more instrumentation. The track evolves in the way I would expect something from Boy Harsher to turn and grind into that deep close-your-eyes-and-drift feeling. The dark room, the crowd all around you, swaying. I cannot wait to see this song performed live.
After a fluid mix of heavy drums and atmosphere — some dance tracks, some big moods — a drumless soundscape takes us home. It isn’t sudden; the plucky, single-note rhythms that filtered through the entire album come to a close in a slow wave that disappears into nothingness. “I guess I’ll just be happy” are the last words we hear, then the music fades out, and it’s over.
GLAARE is a band I forgot I was so in love with. From To Deaf and Day, which was a strong debut for a collection of experienced and lived musicians, to Your Hellbound Heart, where the production and sound design is second only to the emotion and tension that lies in every synth stab and pad, GLAARE have easily slipped back into my everyday playlists. Rachel Pierce is a force on stage and I think a lot of that energy has been captured in the vocals on this record. Your Hellbound Heart is a strikingly beautiful and subtly uncomfortable record that I feel will only be more intense in a loud, live environment.
GLAARE’s sophomore album, Your Hellbound Heart, is out on April 30th via Weyrd Son Records. You can pre-order it now on Bandcamp.