’…a relentless war fought between extremes of unconditional love, and total abandonment of the will to continue…’
‘The only holy book/Is the one inside your heart/And on every page/Your love has made a work of art‘.
Over and over again, I’ve written and rewritten this introduction. I could tell you about how State Faults have been a Californian staple of the screamo scene throughout the 10’s. I could tell you about the band not only have reformed, but fought through the pandemic and financial hardship. I could tell you that it’s their first album in five years.
However, I think the best way to introduce this record is like so: do you want to listen to the most emotionally punishing and sonically crushing album of the year? Do you want to feel as though your very being is dragged through a fire in a raging display of bleak, desperate catharsis? Do you want to walk the fine line between the most human and the most mystical that love represents? Do you want to bear witness to what tenderness sits at the very depths of brutality?
Then State Fault’s phenomenal work of art, ‘Children Of The Moon’, is waiting for you.
Sitting at over an hour in length, not only is State Faults’ record ambitious in terms of modern records, but wildly ambitious when one notes the band’s screamo roots – a genre so often marked by tracks that barely creep over the two minute mark. Sonically and conceptually, this record transcends expectations and genre, leading to a brutally aggressive listening experience that still feels expansive and cinematic.
Part of that cinematic feeling comes from the usage of interludes woven throughout the album; two exist as explicit standalone tracks, whereas some briefly appear at the ends of tracks, with spoken word dialogue layered over the top. The opening track is one of the former, acting almost as the deep breath before the plunge into the album. You wade into the water, and you don’t get to return as the same person as you were before.
Almost as if a glorious ray of light, ‘Blood Moon’ pierces the gloom with thundering post-hardcore rhythms and soaring guitar passages that act as a sonic shot of adrenaline; the album is now alive, thrashing violently as vocalist recklessly pursues some sense of happiness in his mind, at all costs. The ‘I still set my heart on fire‘ shouted vocal refrain is particularly brilliant, layered against the pure desperate ferocity of Jonny Andrew’s screams.
That sense of grandeur the opening track arrives upon continues into the follow-up; the choruses of ‘Palo Santo‘ feature a soaring levity to their character, with belted vocal passages that elevate the listener, before the track crashes back down into apocalyptic, hurtling verses. ‘We’re all the children of the moon’ is both chanted and screamed, as the track fades out on one of those aforementioned liminal interludes.
If you hadn’t paid any attention to the percussion of Jared Wallace, then ‘Leviathan’ forces you to take note. The complex rhythms manage to convey both claustrophobia and immensity, consistently roiling like a living, breathing organism. It is something truly magnificent to behold, and once you notice the pure craftsmanship of the percussion, it becomes a consistent highlight across the entirety of the record. The soaring guitar solo in the back half of the track is shiver-inducing, as it collapses into tapped notes that cascade around the listener.
’Heat Death’ barrels towards the listener as a panic attack in sonic form, lyricism structurally taking the form more so of a stream of consciousness than a clear song. The temp switch up in the back half lends a real sense of power, as Andrew declares ‘Someday I’ll wake up and open my eyes/And the world will know real love’, in a defiant moment of pained optimism, before the album begins to collapse in on itself.
‘Children Of The Moon’ is fourteen tracks long, and seemingly pivots around track seven; all consequences swirl around this closing statement to act one of this record. Even track six, ‘Looming’, is an interlude that appears more so as a shadow of what is immediately ahead than a standalone moment. For whilst all moments on this record are inexorably tied to one another, no more so is that the case than with ‘No Gospel’.
‘No Gospel’ could be the song of the year. Everything wonderful about this album comes together in a grandiose statement of love and unity against all opposition, as State Faults launch into a nine minute behemoth of a track that is screamo at its most realised, period. This love, whether romantic or platonic, marches without fail to some doomed ending, and yet does so with full defiance and adoration (‘The music fades, the dream must end/Autumn carved into our hands/But I’ll hold you, if you hold me’).
There is a pure, unadulterated beauty at the heart of this swirling maelstrom of brutality that only the most special of musicians are able to craft. From the relentless percussion, to the rhythmic changes that rise up and crash down upon the listener, to the incomparably compelling vocal performance, the track is a magical experience to behold that challenges not just what you anticipate from this band, but from any band that share a sonic space with them.
As the track plays out with gentle acoustics layered over the lapping of waves, it is clear that something fundamental has changed within this record; the journey has approached the sun, and now must burn up, and fall.
That acoustic melody that closed out ‘No Gospel’ now is played once more in a fully fleshed out reimagining, as the band plunge into ‘Transfiguration’. Some of the most interesting and intricate guitar work from Andrew and Michael Weldon takes place here, weaving bold patterns around the blistering fury of Andrew‘s vocals.
‘Divination‘ slams into the listener again with bold, unrepetant ferocity buoyed by thunderous bass. Themes of being unable to shake off past demons that have peppered the lyricism thus far now begins to truly bare fruit (‘Some stay forever looking backwards/And the void starts looking back’), as it becomes clear that no amount of love can mend a rift that keeps growing, fed by years of pain that has yet to be bled out.
‘Distant Omen’ and ‘Nazar’ exist almost as two pieces of a singular whole, with a common thread of feeling cursed to destroy what they love. ‘Distant Omen’ is a desperate scramble to save the soul, with a dizzying, waltzing rhythm that swirls around the listener, whilst ‘Nazar‘ is illuminated with soft chimes and twinkling bells as it plunges deep into a heartbroken despair with visceral lyricism and a gorgeous instrumental outro (‘I feel your love drifting/Like petals from a cherry tree’).
There is no peaceful acceptance of what has come to pass, however. That cancerous despair that has lead to this ruin is only fed by this new state of isolation. ‘Palm Reader’ is an observation of the damage left behind by life’s pain, and the inhospitable world it can transform your inner self into; ‘The holes in the ceiling grow/From life’s unrelenting storm’, leading to the total collapse of one’s self, and the most profound pain being the inability to leave that pain in the past as you try to rebuild the self (‘Haunting the houses/We build from the wreckage’).
Despite all of the occult mystery that permeates deep into the bones of this record, at its core, this is simply about self-destruction and lost love, and nowhere is that more explicit than on the gut-wrenching penultimate track, ‘Wind Song‘. ‘Please don’t leave me/Don’t let go/I can still fix me‘ — pleads, set against an onslaught of frenzied sonic fury, the band now having completely let go of any pretences of catchy choruses or singable melodies in favour of pure, pained catharsis.
Now alone, isolated by a weight that has ground the spirit down to nought, the album concludes with the sweeping, morose, and darkly beautiful ‘Bodega Head‘. Here, clean melodies take the reins once more, almost as if the anger has evaporated and left only the shadow of despair behind. Then, as the stripped-back acoustics approach the half-way mark of the track, that aggression surges forwards once more to bring the album to a stunning, rapturous close. Soaring guitar solos, sweeping strings, and stadium-sized percussion fills the space around the listener, crackling with pure electricity, as the album ends on a desperately dark note.
‘Children Of The Moon‘ is the death of hope, with a relentless war fought between extremes of unconditional love, and total abandonment of the will to continue, slowly transitioning across the span of this record from the former to the latter. It climbs to a summit across the first seven tracks, with anthemic choruses and punchy, catchy refrains, before spiralling deeper and deeper towards the end, tracks morphing into monstrous onslaughts of crushing screamo.
Is it ever possible to let go of the past? Is that void always just out of sight, ready to slip back in through the cracks left in the psyche by the hurricane of life? Is the shadow of your former self always doomed to crush the love of the present? There are no answers here; perhaps the constellations might posses them.
The last time two records scored 100/100 in the same year here was 2017, with Manchester Orchestra’s ‘A Black Mile To The Surface‘, and a record produced by a band that does not deserve to be platformed. That six year record has now been matched.
‘Children Of The Moon‘ by State Faults is now the eleventh Vinyl Fantasy Reviews 100/100 record.
RATING: 100/100 – Perfect
For Fans Of: Frail Body, ourfathers., Knocked Loose, Deafheaven, Crooks UK, mewithoutYou
Physical copies of the album are available to purchase here.
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