19 April 2012
Sometimes the best records are the ones bewildering upon first listen; and it's not until the fifth or sixth listen where you begin to settle down enough to commit each track to memory. Ground Dweller is exactly this.
The six-piece from Canberra honed their craft and exercised their patience over six years together, making this debut all the more welcome. But it’s not just its weaving of The Getaway Plan’s braised delivery, nor the lyrical aptitude of Chiodos and Emarosa, it’s the heavier concentration on samples, keys, and galloping drums that prove the band are completely unafraid to denounce their kindred predecessors.
From opening track Antarctica, where like its namesake, the track laces the roaring and dangerous with the sparse calm, HLH explore a plethora of samples while vocalist Trenton Todd Woodley captures the complexity of young-adult ennui.
Woodley’s voice digests in fragments through The Definition Of Not Leaving, most sweet and lush but with the hint of a thin glass shard, lightly slicing your oesophagus forcing you to mix yourself in the swallow. Orchestral-style synths conjoin layer upon layer in Spineless Crow while the album’s high point Watchmaker (Memphis May Fire) flows in the other direction with eerie chants and breakdowns reminiscent of A Day To Remember.
Interestingly, the most anticipated track seems to pale against its pedestal-topping counterparts. Lion Skin features two of Woodley’s most oft-compared comrades: Jonny Craig of Dance Gavin Dance, Emarosa and Ghost Hunter On Third and Tyler Carter, the ex-Woe Is Me frontman. Lackadaisical lyrics like, “there's spiders crawling from the corners of my eyes. Let them weave their little webs to snatch the sunlight from the lens,” provide the clashing mood behind a near four and a half minute meet of crazed, electronic-Vs-traditional-hardcore fusion.
At times Ground Dweller could score the next Tim Burton film, others could take you back to that honest moment when you first accepted synths’ place in hard rock music. A debut that incites more than five different emotions at once should be lauded, a debut from six Canberra kids with an intuition such as theirs should be lauded with longevity.
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