BOUNDARIES ‘Yearning: The unbeautiful after’

BOUNDARIES
Yearning: The unbeautiful after
Sumerian Records

As their Massachusetts neighbors might say, the fourth album from Connecticut’s BOUNDARIES sounds “wicked pissed.” The ceaselessly belligerent, unrelentingly brutal affair revels in its maximalism and rage.

The 14 tracks here aren’t so much songs as they are a series of profane, one-sided arguments or breathless screeds – an airing of grievances worthy of any Festivus gathering at the Costanza household. And with its 52-minute run time, ‘Yearning’ gets to a point– actually points – where it can be tough to listen to the whole way through, even for those who are into extremity at its most, well, “extreme.”

Frontman Matthew McDougal throws a veritable shitfit over an often-disjointed barrage of gut-punch riffs, heaving breakdowns, spastic tempo changes, melodramatic broods and weird bits of pop-punkiness. At times, he seems genuinely earnest. Mostly, though, his bug-eyed “You are fucking nothing” signoff to album opener “Malconscience” or “Life is fucking killing me” mantra from “Torn Wide Open” sets the tone. As mentioned above, there's nearly an hour of this, so you kinda wish he might “shut the fuck up” for a bit.

The intrusive, bird-dogging cleans really don’t help. While the intent seems reasonable, to provide contrast and add a dramatic yang to McDougal’s considerable yin, the execution falls flat. You really need commanding cleans, a la Howard Jones/Jesse Leach in KILLSWITCH ENGAGE or the AS I LAY DYING tag-team – before the hit-man kerfuffle – to complement McDougal’s rabid caterwaul, but drummer Tim Sullivan’s nasally mewl seems a far better fit in a lighter-weight, SUM 41-like setting.

In the BOUNDARIES context, they seem out of place – or just unnecessary – and are overwhelmed much of the time. It speaks volumes, so to say, that the wispy guest female cleans from MAKE THEM SUFFER’s Alex Reade to close out “Torn Wide Open” are the most poignant and effective on the whole album. 

The simpler, metallier moments here tend to connect the most and provide some genuine thrills. Djenty stutter steps and jagged riffs elevate the otherwise punky “Unequal Whole.” The chuggy “The Leper’s Bell” overcomes its clean vocal intrusions with a blasty, almost symphonic sprint. The thrashy banger “Death Will Follow Me” gets the metal/core equation mostly right, save for the clunky final minute or so that easily could have been left off. “May This Pain Never Leave” offers some of the honest earnestness from McDougal noted above – “I will suffer your loss as long as I live and breathe some” – and its more traditional structure makes it effectively “songy” even with its caveman breakdown.

But too often, band seems to know no, umm, boundaries and tries to do too much, when a less is more straight-forward approach, would do – as evidenced by someone like, say KNOCKED LOOSE, with whom BOUNDARIES will be touring this fall. With ‘Yearning’s’ mishmash of death/metalcore, scream-o, thrash/death metal and punk rock and the almost patchwork feel of a lot of the songs, it’s like the band is still searching for its footing. And at four albums in, maybe that’s why it sounds so “wicked pissed.”

2.0 Out Of 5.0