Ever hear the name of a band, then listen to them and think the combination couldn’t be more perfect? That’s the vibe that Los Angeles’ Dangers create on their third album ‘The Bend In The Break’. A release that deals in vicious hardcore pummeling and torrents of looseness for a draining, but unequivocally exhilarating experience.

At it’s hardest ‘The Bend In The Break’ puts Dangers in spitting distance of hardcore’s top tier. Frontman Alfred Brown IV sounds like the lovechild of Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley and Converge’s Jacob Bannon in his larynx-shredding shrieks. While tracks like ‘Softer Science’ and ‘Those Sad Plebes Down There’ pack in the very best of the genre’s modern day permutations, with full-throated gang-chants in the latter and full-on savagery in the former.

There’s also the evidence of Dangers’s willingness to explore outside their own wheelhouse, as the album sees experimentation with post-punk and sludge come to the fore to break up the sheer hardcore fury. Opener ‘Human Noose’ is the frosty presage that leads into the chaos, while ‘Loose Cigarettes’ and ‘The Straight World’ are like sledgehammers coming down on your neck. Especially with Brown’s screams only adding to the claustrophobic nightmare.

But that’s probably where the main problem with ‘The Bend In The Break’ emerges. The only sonic cohesion is the very thin thread of the vocals, making the relative cherry-picking of sounds fairly disorienting at times. But other than that this is a must for any hardcore fan’s collection. A powerful, vicious album that, if there’s any justice, should see Dangers become stalwarts of the scene for years to come.

4/5

‘The Bend In The Break’ by Dangers is released on October 14th on Topshelf Records.

Dangers links: Website|Facebook|Bandcamp

Words by Luke Nuttall (@nuttall_luke)