Blistering is the best way to describe Together We’re Alone, the debut album from Australian hardcore band Statues, that and thoroughly enjoyable. Hailing from Perth, the band uncages a “chaotic” style of the genre which has a just as keen penchant for acidic noise and caustic punk. Like a voracious merger of Ghost of a Thousand and Shevils with Coilguns and Kabul Golf Club, band and sound is a corrosive and exhilarating proposition, not forgetting one of the most unique.
Formed in 2009, Statues became swiftly recognised and renowned for their high intensity stage performances, shows which has seen them play alongside the likes of Every Time I Die, Northlane, Stray from the Path, Stick to Your Guns, Structures, and La Dispute. Their reputation has gone before them but Together We’re Alone is the band’s first real foray into global attention and it is hard to see the release missing out on awakening an intensive spotlight on the quintet’s presence.
As unafraid to make a searing commentary on social and personal issues as it is in scorching the senses, band and album instantly stirs up attention and imagination with the brief and seriously potent All Fears Are Learned, All Victories Are Earned. The opening song almost swaggers as it casts percussive bait straight away but is soon turning its enticing entrance into a brewing maelstrom of raw grooves and caustic riffs. There is still a teasing lure to the track though, a lighter almost mischievous wink which subsequently turns to a scowl and roars along with the imposing and striking vocals of Jayme Van Keulen. As swiftly realised across the album, how a song starts and tempts is never a consistent narrative, just a moment in a fury of invention shown here by the guitars of Scott Kay and John Overthrow mixing stabbing riffs and hook spilling noise to further colour and ignite the already incendiary proposition.
The following Always Building, Always Breaking similarly opens with an engaging temptation before venting its rage, a bluesy flame of guitar a spicy offering initially. It is soon battling 
with and aligning to, a fierce bluster of noise and the rapid fire skills of drummer Daniel Harper as the track explodes with fierce enterprise and magnetic intensity. As its predecessor, there is as much irresistible contagiousness to the encounter as passionate fury, especially through the masterful infectious lures laid down by Matthew Templeman’s bass skills which seem to creatively revel in the tempest. The track is a brawl of an incitement, a torrential outpouring of angst and hostility within a weave of sonic ingenuity. Only two songs in and Together We’re Alone is already announcing that it is one of the most startling and exciting hardcore releases of current times.
Oh Precious Commodity does nothing to defuse that thought and declaration, its hoarse vocal and anthemic barracking accompanied by throaty bass groans and tangy grooves which feverishly scorch and light the senses. There is hailstorm of piercing beats throughout the knee buckling ferocity too which collude with a cascade of just as hellacious vocals and dramatically imaginative inhospitality. Together they make an antagonistic treat matched in its individual way by the mouth-watering sonic hysteria of Forseeing the Cloud and Not the Rain and the hellacious rampage of Affliction Prescription. With a great many hardcore bands similarity seems to creep into any clutch of songs but there is no sign of that across Together We’re Alone, this pair alone steeped in abrasing individuality and unpredictable invention.
The band throws a curve ball from left field next, the simple and bewitching soulful blues croon of I Want Peace stepping forward with just voice against handclaps as its body, before the impassioned hostile delirium of Abide consumes ears and senses. As now expected, the track is a shifting landscape of imposing ideation and eventful sound, ruggedly caressing and forcibly pounding the psyche from start to finish. The thrilling turbulence makes way for Burning the Truth At Both Ends with its spiralling acrid grooves of and the concussive might of The Wanderer; both a crippling net of rhythms and scalding vat of sonic exploration bound in emotional ferocity.
Between the slower melodic almost post hardcore tinged Hard Words, Softly Spoken and the closing Within Arm’s Reach, another unexpected twist comes with the blues instrumental twang of Hope Is. Its minute plus lure is an intriguing and pleasing respite ready for the final creative furor of the album, Within Arm’s Reach arguably the most intensive and painfully invigorating track on the album, though all songs truthfully leave senses sore and emotions elated.
Statues have set down a benchmark not only for themselves but hardcore with Together We’re Alone, the first of many you imagine if this release is anything to go by.
Together We’re Alone is available now via https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/together-were-alone/id944791123
https://www.facebook.com/statuesau
RingMaster 14/01/2015
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