25th October 2024

Review: “A Place That Doesn’t Exist” by Loveletter

From scraping together their first set to play a show with Graphic Nature in Swansea in 2023 which they confess to finishing by the skin of their teeth, Welsh Nu-Metalcore crew Loveletter have come along way. A trio of barnstorming singles since then in “Slow Death“, “No Sun” and “Choke” have not only put them on the map but allowed them to share stages with the likes of Continents and Vexed in a first year as a band they’ll never forget. Maintaining perpetual forward motion, they continued to work with Tim Vincent (Casey, Overpower, Brutality Will Prevail) at Woodcroft Audio in Cardiff Bay, South Wales. He engineered, recorded, mixed and mastered debut EP “A Place That Doesn’t Exist” having masterfully handled their prior convictions. As fans of “The Death Card” album by Sworn In, the four piece seized the opportunity and invited Tyler Dennen to join them for one called “Thorn“…

A heavy hitting single verse introduction “A Place That Doesn’t Exist” provides that instant shock wake up call of a defibrillator to the chest when you were sound asleep. It may only be a 19 second outburst of violence but with flavours of Dealer and Emmure it grabs the attention instantly. As if that wasn’t enough Tyler Dennen of Sworn In joins the party as the four piece go straight for the jugular with the bombastic “Thorn“. A cut which takes a leaf out of the Australian scene, its a powerful statement piece of crushing distorted riffs delivered at breakneck pace as the band bludgeon with their rhythmic prowess. A downtempo finale that breaks out into staccato riff breaks is nothing short of lethal as the four piece ensure that they leave a crater in their wake. Falling somewhere between Deathcore, Nu-Metalcore and Metallic Hardcore, these burnt offerings capture a menacing and sinister darkness with oppressive atmospheres at their bitter black hearts. A deep, dirge laden bass sound ploughs a furrow through the skull as “Bittersweet” takes shape, a vicious little ditty that has real malice to it finds the band somehow managing to shoehorn in a melodic drop off with almost unhinged clean vocals. Stepping back up into their usual groove the feels like someone has cut the chord that holds the straight jacket in place as the machine roars back into life like a beast from the black depths.

As if needing to prove that they can do melody as well as blunt force trauma, “Create Bed” offers screamed vocals with melodic guitars all wrapped in the kind of raw emotion that sends a chill down the spine. Another clean vocal passage adds a real grit as suicidal thoughts linger before the distortion levels are turned back up to add to the intensity. The strange thing about this one is that it feels almost unfinished because it could have easily gone on longer but instead cuts short before it can do any more damage. That does however allow “Crown” to grab you by the throat with its stompy, down tuned distortions hitting like bricks to the skull. It has an almost lurching like quality with little pause breaks between chugged riffage threatening to cut the tune dead at any point while the lyrical wrap around to the opening cut is perfect placed. A punishment beating that you might not have seen coming, the supreme quality of this record should be enough for the four piece to get the call to the American tour circuit… [8.5/10]

Track Listing