UNTIL YOUR HEART STOPS’ ERRORS WILL CURE YOUR HARDCORE CASE OF THE BLAHS

Band Name: Until Your Heart Stops
Album Cover: Scenic, reflective stuff
Runtime: 19 minutes

If that doesn’t sound hardcore, then pork rinds aren’t greasy. It has to be rough for a band of this trade to release their debut EP — err … album — within the same month as Defeater’s latest ear-ringer. Fortunately for the Bay Area five-piece, they happen to be a little whacked. “How whacked?” Well, consider this: At the Drive-In reform for a twenty-minute-only concert and ten seconds in, some hardcore kid windmill kicks his way on stage and sends Zavala flying.

These guys may just be nutty enough to catch on.

Errors plays out far more like a single, crazed teacup ride through the worlds of hardcore and punk than it does nine individual songs. The transitions between tracks are almost non-existent and, once things get cooking, the band hardly takes a breath.

For all the chaos the record spews, it opens in a surprisingly tame manner. “Unhealthy Situations” drifts in with gentle female vocals and what appears to be lap steel guitar, washing warmly over the listener. This intro sets the stage nicely for the beat-down that follows, laying out the lyrical themes of the record in plain form. There are some broken hearts in this band, and plenty of hell to pay.

The collective five-minutes of the title track, “Zodiac Signs,” and “A Cult Classic” comprise Errors’ first flex of the bicep. Bugged-out, bluesy guitar chords and saxophone breakdowns complement an audibly miffed Sajjad. Despite not varying his tone greatly throughout the album, his gravely yelp (at times, very much in the vein of Greg Puciato), fits the music to a tee. He’s also got some witty lines in there.

“Caffeinated Blues” provides a rare and welcome respite from the friction in the odd form of a loungy interlude HORSE the band could have written. Things don’t stay down for long, though, as the group bites back a minute later with the shifty rhythms and blistering pace of “Regressed.”

As the record reaches its arc in the final two tracks, the guys put on their semi-serious faces. They even pull off one of those epic album’s end buildups where the singer yells menacingly over marching-band snare rolls and brass harmonies. Okay- maybe that last part isn’t so typical.

Do you have a hardcore case of the blahs? Until Your Heart Stops might just be able to help you with that. Errors brings the light-hearted heavy in spades. After you finish punching the wall with Empty Days & Sleepless Nights, give this a listen.

(3 1/2 hourns out of 5)

-BS