Single Review: Dowager – Title Track EP

The members of Portland’s Dowager were previously involved in pop punk projects, such as Our First Brains and Sioux Falls, prior to forming their current band, and experiencing a distinct shift in style and tone. Last month they unleashed their new EP, Title Track, it was recorded at the acclaimed Atomic Garden Studio with Jack Shirley in East Palo Alto, California. The Title Track EP is five cuts of shifting and brooding post hardcore, it combines a hefty number of influences and styles that combine to make Title Track an unpredictable beast of an EP.

Title Track opens with some serious intent, the furious Gutterflower kicks things off with a potent combination of Hardcore, Post Hardcore and Screamo, this alternates between a full on aural assault and comparatively delicate post punk technical passages. The approach bleeds through into Fingerguns, although this track hits critical mass in it’s intensity as it approaches it’s finale. The other three tracks  Sleep Paralysis, Model Home and the closing track, Coastal, on the Title Track EP maintain the ferocious post hardcore approach, until it closes on a mellower math rock influenced approach at the finale of the final track.

This is a relentless and unique five tracks that combines the fury of hardcore, the creativity of post punk and the complexity of math rock, this might sound like an unlikely ménage à trois, but that is exactly what you get on the Title Track EP. This is an release that possesses a discordant, yet melodic fury, in essence the Title Track EP is a mass of contradictions, and it’s this that makes it an intriguing listen. Whilst this won’t be to everyone’s taste this is an original and unique EP, and if you tastes are towards the noisier end of post punk, or the punkier end of noise rock, then you should investigate Dowager‘s latest EP.

Title Track can be pre-ordered from Standard Brickhouse Records here