Sometimes you don’t realise you’re looking at the flower until it blooms. Four years ago, with the release of their How Flowers Grow debut, Scowl were being declared the coolest band on Earth. The California quintet found themselves, like Turnstile before them, taking hardcore to Coachella. Singer Kat Moss was hailed as a new icon. They’ve ended up as labelmates of Phoebe Bridgers.
Which is all lovely. But listening to Are We All Angels, it’s impressive just how short-sighted we all were about what was to come. The roots of Scowl are clearly visible – the bare-knuckle aggression, the speed, the screams – but it’s far from the conclusion of all they are. Instead, there’s a more grungy vibe, a shade of Nirvana’s melodic fuzz. Where things used to often be a smash-and-grab affair, here it all breathes, allowing moments like the enormous chorus of Special, or the way Tonight (I’m Afraid) grows from its staccato opening into a gigantic bit of alt.rock that’s truly stunning in its sheer scope.
Fleshed Out feels more familiar, with its spiky, juddering stop-start main riff and screams, Now Hell, Not Heaven is a mix of melody and chainsaw guitar, as is B.A.B.E., while the closing title-track is a straight-ahead banger (before it collapses into swelling noise), but even then, it’s all done by this new, more widescreen Scowl. It’s absolutely fantastic. Where previously their records had sounded like a moment captured, a document of a fire blazing away, this is more controlled and deliberate, where everything arrives with the confidence of a heavyweight champ.
