by Dan Goldin (@paintingwithdan)
What you need to know is that Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death’s new album Earthquake Lights opens with a song called “Joe Sabbath” with a riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on Sabotage. The similarities to Sabbath don’t end there and yet it certainly never defines them, this album is never short on great moments. While the Ithaca based post-hardcore band might have spent five years between their previous two albums, the reinvigoration sparked by 2024’s Thirds continues to roar like an avalanche on Earthquake Lights, recorded together last year with Chris Ploss (Izzy True, Chimes of Bayonets, Material Objects) at Sunwood Recording in Trumansburg, NY. Due out on March 13th to coincide with the band’s upcoming tour dates (see below), the album is awash in surging guitar riffs, extra thick melodies, and drums that beat our senses to a pulp in the best of ways. The songs are intricate and dense but the hooks come easy, pulling influence from bands like Mission of Burma, Quicksand, and Jawbox, proving once more that making complex and interesting post-hardcore music doesn’t have to sound sterile. They’ve come to shred this time around.
“Second Empire,” the record’s lead single, rumbles out the gate with a detached twin guitar attack (listen with headphones) and a knotted rhythm that’s well worth fixating your attention on. Everyone is playing their part, and everyone is doing it with aplomb. Brendan Kuntz (drums) and Tom Yagielski (bass) are playing with high wire precision, demolishing a path of nimble math rock dexterity that retains a natural groove and a locked-in pulse. It’s the kind of backbone that lets the duel guitars of Joe Kepic and David Nutt really cook, wrapping in a cosmic laser beam of kinetic riffs with a melody that feels glued into place. With lines like “you wait for a bright idea, and god it burns like hell” and traces of Rival Schools, Black Helicopter, and Burning Airlines in its DNA, “Second Empire” is an instantly memorable song.
Catch Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death on tour:
03/19 - Troy, NY @ No Fun
03/20 - Burlington, VT @ Odd Fellows Hall
03/21 - Holyoke, MA @ Holyoke Media Theater