‘This Love Letter album destroyed me, some of the best straight up hardcore I’ve heard in years.’
‘Yeah, I love hearing Quinn’s vocals again.’
‘Totally. Wait what?’
I love how discovering new music can occasionally be like opening up one of those magic cans where a bunch of brightly colored snakes pop out. Only instead of snakes it’s awesome bands you’ve never heard of falling into your lap through happenstance. This was my introduction to Defeater and Verse members of which have formed a new band Love Letter. Their debut album Everyone Wants Something Beautiful out earlier this year on Iodine Recordings is the one I was gushing over. So I ended up finding not just one favorite band but three. Not bad for new music Friday.
Everyone is an astounding work of melodic hardcore. The album switch-hits between punches of crushing instrumentation and knock-out lyrics. Based on real world issues of violence and trauma, the content of the album is heartfelt and powerful. Love Letter pulls together the best of hardcore’s aggression and post-hardcore’s vulnerability. Sonically and emotionally Everyone is a workout.
I was completely floored by this album. Everyone has been in my heavy rotation ever since its release, maintaining a spot at the top of my album of the year list. So I decided to reach out to the band and was delighted to be able to speak with Jay Maas (guitar), Dave Alcan (bass) and Quinn Murphy (vocals).
For having just now released their debut record it was somewhat surprising to find out the band actually dates back quite a bit to just before Covid. It all started with a group chat which included several of the members that would eventually go on to form Love Letter. Dave reveals, ‘The catalyst was when they collectively ran into each other at a Silent Drive show where Matt told Jay that they needed to do something together. That kicked it into gear and here we are.’
Dave is actually the newest member of the band and in a funny twist of fate ended up in the band during the writing and recording sessions for Everyone. Which he was originally engineering.
Dave: ‘I joined the band during the writing sessions for EWSB. Jay is one of my best friends, and I also happen to be an audio engineer. Jay pulled me into this world and not only do I run my own studio, but I’m an assistant mix engineer for him. He called me and told me he planned on doing an LP. He thought that being cooped up in his own studio would be a hindrance and just wanted to get going. He sent over the Pale Moon Ranch Instagram, and I fell in love with the studio. Who doesn’t want to go to the desert hills outside of LA and do a record? He quickly followed that up with wanting to work with another engineer so he could just focus on the writing. My mind went right to Alex Estrada, who owns Pale Moon, but boy was I wrong. Jay asked me to come engineer the record for him and the rest is history.’
Brief melancholic keys open up “New Anthemic” before pummeling straight into a furious assault. The lush midpoint is stripped down almost spoken word post-rock. Only to plunge back into another wave of hardcore fury. An excellent finish to the song and a strong start for the album.
Dave: ‘We wrote the majority of the record out at Pale Moon Ranch. We fell into a rhythm of waking up, coffee, and breakfast. We’d sit down to write parts or passages that we all felt good about. Then Andy tracked the drums. Once the takes were done Jay and I would stay up getting it all together. Rinse and repeat. The guitar and vocal tracking were all done afterwards up in Boston at Jay’s studio. The bass was split between there and my studio down in Richmond. We both work out of the same DAW so working together is seamless, especially when we’re both back home working out of our own studios. Keeping everything in house allowed for us to really take our time with it and get it right. The process as a whole was very freeing and liberating. There was no overhead or pressure to get this done. We just wrote the songs for ourselves. It was cathartic more than anything.’
As I’ve worked with more musicians and gained further insight into their creative process, it is refreshing how much I hear that they are just making the kind of music they would want to hear. It’s inspiring to hear for those up and coming that so often the biggest fans are the artists themselves. Too often musicians are imagined as distant up in lofty heights communing with the muses to bring their masterpieces back down to earth for us mere mortals to consume. But usually the truth is much more grounded. The artistic ebb and flow between creators and fans is an interlinked rising tide that lifts all boats.
Dave: ‘I think there’s an inherent sound that people carry with them as they write music, almost like a fingerprint. Some of that you can’t change, old habits die hard. With the addition of different writing voices in the band, it definitely shaped the sound. At the end of the day we wrote a record that we wanted to listen to. It was really liberating to not put any pressure on each other, and just let it naturally happen.’
As always I’m interested in how musicians first develop a love of music. Especially the heavier genres like hardcore, screamo, or death metal. There isn’t much mystery when someone is into radio rock or pop, but when you dig the hard stuff usually there’s a story there.
Quinn: ‘I guess it kind of kicked off for me when I was a kid. I remember being drawn to snotty sounding aggressive music in general. Specifically singers with raspy loud projecting voices overflowing with urgency. This will probably sound strange, my mother would listen to Janis Joplin and The Clash pretty often. From what I remember, that was my first interest in music. I think that translates into my immediate interest in the punk world when I was first exposed to it. The same with hip hop. I was shuffled around a lot growing up, different schools every year, different family members, group homes. So I never really had a solid sense of community or friends until I started going to shows and meeting people. That was the main thing that kept me anchored, more or less, and why I’ve been tethered to HC/punk from an early age. It was the only sense of stability I had growing up. I was a late bloomer in that department due to my childhood environment, so when I say growing up I mean throughout my teenage years and well into my late 20s.’
Of all the biting one-liners on Everyone, and there are certainly plenty of them, perhaps the most devastating is the one on “Misanthropic Holiday Or Vacation”. I’d like to take a deep dive into just a few examples of the succinct lyricism this record relentlessly slashes out with on cut after cut.
‘Your trauma doesn’t mean shit until you learn to deal with it.’ – “Misanthropic”
Quinn: ‘“Misanthropic” is me criticizing and attacking myself. That line has been a mantra of sorts that has been rattling around in my brain for some years now. It’s like a checks and balances philosophy and reminder that I need to keep on top of my own traumatic bullshit and not let it spill over onto others. Retrospect paints a fairly awful picture of the way I’ve behaved and treated some people and situations in my life. I might be too hard on myself or whatever but I have so many regrets. Some that were out of my control, but some that were for sure within my control that I couldn’t see for years. The crux of that line is to maintain composure and perspective of everything, not just what I perceive in whatever given moment. Critically thinking about my actions/reactions, behavior in emotionally charged situations, relationships, friendships—the entire bag, really.’
As someone that struggles with depression and addiction this line hit me the hardest of not just this record but anything I’ve heard all year. Maybe longer. I see this line as an attack on the notion that it’s acceptable to just bitch and moan about your problems while doing nothing to resolve and work through them. It’s tempting to use your own shit as an excuse to give up or not even try. Or even worse to lay your baggage down at someone else’s feet. But my trauma is no one else’s to deal with but mine. And until I deal with it it really doesn’t mean shit.
‘An impossible world to love.’ – “Settlements”
Quinn: ‘“Settlements” is a scathing indictment of imperialism and settler colonialism through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This line is almost a cast away near the middle of the song amidst a laundry list of modern day evils. But by the end of the song it becomes a repeated mantra mournfully echoing out to the end of the track. To me there is so much heartbreak contained in just these five words. We are constantly inundated with so much injustice that for those of us who cannot turn away from the horror at times this world does seem impossible to love. And yet somehow there is at least a glimmer of hope. Or maybe a sense of responsibility that is thrust on each of us individually. The world is only unlovable so long as we do nothing remaining silent amid atrocity. An impossible world to love implies a better world is possible.’
‘There’s only violence here.’ – “Unhousing Projects”
Quinn: ‘This is an assessment of what I’ve experienced throughout my life, throughout my friends’ and family members’ lives. An observational take on what life is like when you’re stuck in a cycle of constant physical and emotional strain. Most of us that are surviving on a low income living paycheck to paycheck reality come from a longstanding history of generational struggle. It’s a systemic issue that keeps families economically trapped with little to no breathing room for happiness or financial stability. I believe this creates the perfect environment for violence of all kinds. This type of weight, the unforgiving weight of capitalism really, falls on the already dehumanized working class and marginalized communities and is rapidly increasing. If you’re born into an environment struggling with poverty and a lack of basic needs, the cards are already not in your favor. Everything from education to personal hygiene, access to healthy unprocessed foods, quality healthcare and mental healthcare, a living wage, etc., is out of reach for most communities. These things are basically weaponized and used to keep us divided and docile towards the ruling classes. Essentially putting us in impossible economic positions. This creates the need for crime. I mean that, wholeheartedly. If you don’t have enough and you’ve been stripped of dignity off the rip—you start to rationalize crime and violence in order to supplement the things you were born lacking. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone suffering in capitalist societies that hasn’t considered risking imprisonment, serious injury, or even death, via illegal supplemental income practices/hustles in order to survive.’
This line to me invokes true helplessness. Looking all around you and seeing no options. Only violence. As Quinn eloquently expanded on there are many kinds of violence. Inherit to the class struggle of capitalist society is not just physical violence, but also economic violence that disproportionately affects those already under the weight. Suffering begets suffering and in this snowball of sorrow, how can anyone judge acts of desperation in response to their place within that system? The appropriate response is not punishment, ridicule, or perhaps worst of all indifference. Unfortunately many options and safety nets are either nonexistent or ineffectual. Community based outreach at the level of the individual is the space where positive change is possible and most actionable.
The emotional intensity delivered by poignant lyricism on the record is matched throughout by pummeling drums and melodic guitar work. What is the writing and recording process like trying to match fierce instrumentation with such passionate words?
Jay: ‘When we are writing the instrumentals I really think of my job on guitar less in riffs but more like a movie score. I’ve always loved playing with different tensions. Throughout my now many decades of writing punk inspired songs I feel really comfortable with being able to showcase my particular voice. We usually start with the instrumental before Quinn writes vocals. But as the producer I still have full ability to augment my chord structures after vocals are done. I think this process of iterating is immensely powerful because it gives us this opportunity to react to things until we are completely satisfied with the final product. Both Matt and Dave do such a great job of complementing my style and bringing out amazing voicings that honestly I would just never think of on my own. I’m so grateful for them because their contributions totally keep the record from getting stale, which can happen when just one person is tasked with being solely responsible for the compositions.’
At the approximate middle of the album the songs “Unhousing Projects” and “Settlements” act as a sort of one-two punch. “Unhousing Projects” is cleverly narrated in the second person present tense, forcing empathy and a sense of urgency on the listener. Then “Settlements” zooms out to a somewhat detached bird’s eye view of an equally dire situation. Whether it’s homelessness here in the States or regional conflicts abroad we’re forever confronted with uncomfortable truths. Why are these stories so necessary to tell?
Quinn: ‘Well, I believe these things are intrinsically connected. “Unhousing Projects” is perspectively specific to the U.S., but is also applicable to every society in the western world. There are multiple direct connections to income, racial, educational, gender, intergenerational, political inequality in the international relations world. The Global South bears the brunt of this ever-growing list due to Western world’s insanely hypocritical and brutal foreign policy spearheaded by the U.S.
‘“Settlements” needs a little context and backstory. I wrote some of the lyrics years ago and adapted them with a refresh for the music that was written. We finished recording the song sometime around August of 2023 and had no idea what was about to unfold for the people of Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine. Obviously we’ve all been watching Israel live-stream their psychopathic genocide and ethnic-cleansing to the world. We’ve all started to question what role we, as individuals, are playing in it. Media outlets in the West have been fully complicit in this genocide. Working hand in hand with the U.S. government and Israeli leaders to change the narrative of what we see with our own eyes. The propaganda and revisionist history is stunning. I don’t think we’ve ever seen this type of absurdity and mental gymnastics play out while it is clear, through the documentation of war crime after war crime—I’ll reiterate, live-streamed not only by Palestinians, but Israeli occupation forces and emboldened far-right extremist nationalist settlers. Western media will have to reconcile with their complicity in all of this. We will all have to reconcile with this.
‘The marginalized, working poor, and working class communities of the world are connected, we are all seemingly forced or manipulated into funding our collective demise. We have more in common with victims of U.S. hegemony in the Global South than we do with the elites, lobbyists groups, think-tanks, politicians, oligarchs, et cetera. There is a clear link in our oppression and misery and I believe we are in for a reckoning and a wave of repression like we’ve never seen before. By the hands of an increasingly corporate controlled government and media. Regardless of what party in whatever country in the west is in control of government.
‘The United States is a terrorist organization to its own citizens and to the entire world. That is the narrative. That is the inconvenient truth we have to start to accept, prospectively, on a mass-scale.’
Whether it’s West Coast hip hop or Floridian death metal I’m forever intrigued by the regional component to music. So what is it about New England and the East Coast in general that produces such consistently excellent and passionate hardcore?
Jay: ‘Snow? Hahaha I’m not sure but it really does seem like a thing doesn’t it? I think there is probably an element of continued legacy where we are all inspired from each other and constantly evolving the greater overall sound of the region. I’ve always thought that when there are real world examples of individuals showing that something can be done it inspires others to try. I know for me, even just as an engineer, seeing guys like Kurt Ballou actually making a life out of being a producer and being in a heavy band (Converge) was so influential in taking my path seriously. I think that happens with bands as well. When we are all going to shows together, all see each other working hard to make our art into reality, it can be infectious. I saw this early on from In My Eyes inspiring bands like Have Heart. Which has obviously gone on to inspire so many different hardcore bands and I strongly suspect that won’t be ending anytime soon.’
So, what’s next for Love Letter?
Dave: ‘We’re headed down to Florida to play Fest 22 in Gainesville. We were invited last year and it was a blast, so we look forward to going back down. There are a few things in the works for 2025 which should be announced sooner rather than later.’
Jay: ‘Europe! For reasons beyond my comprehension we’ve decided to tour Europe in freezing cold February. Just kidding but for real, we are doing a few weeks with our friends in the band Heavy Hex and it’s going to be an absolute blast. There are so many cool venues, people, promoters, and cities I haven’t gotten to see and enjoy for almost a decade now. Europe has always been such an amazing place for the kind of music we make, they seem to really care and get it. Things are a little bit up in the air after that, but we are getting offers all the time so I’m sure there is much more to come.’
