First Stage Separation
First Stage Separation doesn’t wait to introduce itself. It lunges. The opening seconds are all jagged edges and forward momentum, as if the songs are trying to outrun themselves. Yet, beneath the grit, there’s an instinct for melody that keeps pulling everything back from the cliff edge. The EP feels built for that strange space where chaos meets clarity. “Hollow Sweetness” takes the sharp corners of noise and wraps them around a hook that refuses to leave. “Decades Lost” drops into a darker register, stretching its shadow over the listener until the tension finally breaks. Even in the quietest moments, there’s a restless pulse — a sense that the band might at any second turn the wheel hard and change direction. What makes the record stick isn’t just the volume or the tightness; it’s the refusal to sand down the rough spots. You can almost see the room it was recorded in — cymbals shaking, amps breathing, the edges of feedback curling at the corners. In an era where rock often arrives airbrushed and over-managed, First Stage Separation sounds like five people in a room, leaning into the noise and trusting it to carry them somewhere worth going. It’s raw, immediate, and impossible to fake.