Thisismenotthinkingofyou Pack An Emoviolence Gut Punch On New Self-Titled LP

Listening to the shrieking new self-titled record from the U.K.-based emoviolence group Thisismenotthinkingofyou feels like an increasingly nauseating gut punch — in a good way. On this chaotically bubbling stew of an album, the band sound like they’ve finely tuned the art of completely melting down with a guitar in hand, so that even as they wheel out blindingly fast, storm-like performances at points like “untitled05,” there’s still such a purposeful energy invigorating the mixture that as a listener, you’re not lost. Instead, once the group speeds up and gets into the thicket of their crushing performances (which doesn’t take long), listening feels like a blast of hurricane-force winds rushing into you — only barely metaphorically speaking.

For all the chaos, one can just about always follow along with the purposed performances leading the way, which helps define the scope of the crazed musical maelstroms. Their song “untitled07,” for instance, opens with a startlingly catchy, very thick-toned drum rhythm whose frenzy gradually increases until the band have launched into their blistering musical attacks once more. Brief blasts of straightforwardly catchy groove ring out on “untitled03” and “untitled04,” but all of these moments nearly immediately get enveloped into the overall musical pounding that the band deliver.

Their flailing, piercing-toned but chaotically swirled guitar performances sound a bit like a pile of knives getting slung at a wall over and over again, and the consistent thickness of their core tones suggests that this metaphorical wall gradually collapses into a pile of rubble. Seriously — although they include enough dynamics like a slowed down intro to give the album its character, there’s never really a moment where Thisismenotthinkingofyou sound like they’re holding back, at all. With the heaving blasts of their performances, they’ve earned the “emoviolence” moniker and then some.

Their new album both opens and closes with guitar performances whose dynamics dramatically swing across the spectrum, like the grooves themselves have been turned into furiously fierce drum hits as they triumphantly surge over and over and over again. The devastating blasts on this record deliver a chance to confront raw, heaving, and “pure” chaos.

5/5 Stars

Check out the music below! It’s out via Adorno Records