The Beat Surrender

I don’t listen to a lot of post-hardcore music generally, I’ve heard the odd Black Flag album and I’ve seen Fugazi live once but that is really as far as it goes, aside from what I get sent to review of course. I would say though that I’m more open to this sort of music now than I’ve ever been and this EP from The Tupolev Ghost has come along at just the right time for me in that respect.

The opener First Prize, is a brawny, aggressive guitar track that has a brooding undercurrent throughout it, the song peters out at the end and almost seamlessly blends into second track Autodidact that is a far more discordant song, ending in a clattering punk mantra repeated over and over.

Final track Ambulances is probably my favourite on here, it has a tension that the other two songs lack, with the guitar work sounding brilliant in creating a real wall for the vocals to sit alongside.