Album review: Calcine – Common Love Common Nausea

You can do a lot of damage in 20 minutes, a point Calcine make abundantly clear on this debut. Following on from a 2022 demo that sent shockwaves through the hardcore scene, the unit come out swinging across Common Love Common Nausea’s nine tracks, embracing the ’core but throwing some other influence into the mix.

After the 58 seconds of ‘scream-hop’ opener Attack To Win is out of the way the guitars arrive and none of the quartet hold back as they unload, 23-11 a truly merciless offering. In common with the likes of Knocked Loose and Code Orange, they also embrace how much destruction can be wrought by slowing… things… right… down… and just hammering away at the listener, doing so masterfully on Back To Fight before unleashing some faster violence, for good measure.

Embracing brevity, only one track breaks the three-minute mark, a couple not even reaching two, and one of these is amongst the best, the punch drunk bludgeon of Amnesic proving truly intoxicating. They also briefly dip back into screamy hip-hop territory on Des Vies À Bout, which makes for a decent change of gear without losing momentum.

Beastly closer Parasite does a good job of wrapping things up. Built upon swaggering agitation and pure fury, it very much gets the point across that Calcine are not to be messed with. It’s maybe overall a little too familiar to say that they are standing out from the pack at this stage in their career, but it’s a damn fine start.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Candy, Harm’s Way, Knocked Loose

Common Love Common Nausea is released on June 21 via Church Road