The heavy Chinese group Life Awaits grip listeners in a swirling pit of emotion on their enthralling brand new single “Better now,” available to listen to below via the popular Dreambound YouTube channel. The band offer a subtly complex sound, feeling passionately committed to moving forward with their music more than they’re intent on adhering to this or that standard for metalcore, post-hardcore, and adjacent styles. Overall, they’re intense but super accessible, which lets the track’s emotional core hinted at by the title shine through that much more fully. To be clear, this is not a “happy” song, but it offers something greater or at least more relevant for some than that — a remarkably straightforward musical catharsis. Every element of this song feels designed to step to the next point beyond the painful destruction that realist metal often deals with.
They’ve got both “familiar” metalcore-style riffing and breakdowns and smoother, “post-hardcore,” almost dreamy sonic parts, and importantly, they bring these elements together quite effectively. Their “message” doesn’t even approach getting lost under any noise — the band are instead clear, crisp, and confident, and it makes the listening experience extra enriching. They leave their music open-ended enough to allow for fans to have their own unique experiences, but lyrically and musically they do center on a core apparent theme of moving beyond deeply set heartache whose reverberations are probably going to be felt for awhile. With a poignantly despondent tone, vocalist Yu repeatedly shares the standout refrain: “I think I’m feeling so much better now.”
As he explains the song: “We wanted to find connections between the lyrics and each note. I personally suffered from bipolar disorder for a period of time. So there’s anger in it and there’s also desperation. But most importantly, there is an exit from it all.”
The ultimately almost surprisingly catchy song is the band’s first for Famined Records, a U.S. label specializing in under-appreciated metalcore, post-hardcore, and the like along these lines. Life Awaits self-released their debut album Waves in 2017 after apparently garnering significant experience in other similarly-styled bands around their scene, which might explain the refreshing musical confidence. They really hit the ground running here.
Check out the track below, and stay tuned for what will no doubt be further intriguing output from this band.
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