“In every band I’ve ever been in, it takes a while to understand what it is supposed to sound like, and you learn that as you go, even in instances where you are aiming for something kind of specific from the outset,” Charles Cure, vocalist of Albany, NY hardcore band Spiritkiller, tells No Echo.
“I think we have reached an interesting point in that journey in the sense that we listened to our previous music and decided to push some stylistic elements from the background and up to the front.”
The group’s sound, displayed on last year’s self-titled LP, has received comparisons to bands like Snapcase, 108, and Refused. And rightfully so. The four-piece dialed into a certain blend of groove and energy that walked the line between ’90s hardcore and post-hardcore. On their upcoming follow-up, This World is Yours and You Can’t Refuse It, out via Immigrant Sun Records on November 20, the band moves further away from those comparisons, drawing from their influences, ambitions, and experiences to carve out their own place in the modern hardcore landscape.
Today, coinciding with the preorder launch, Spiritkiller have teamed up with No Echo to premiere “Unlimited Hangout,” the second single from This World is Yours and You Can’t Refuse It. If you’ve seen the band sometime in the past few months, you’ve already been privy to the song’s dynamic range, from Cure’s earnest, heartfelt delivery and the creative drumming of Mike Putz to the locked-in groove of bassist Byron Wheeler and guitarist Tom Schlatter.
Cure says of the song’s creation: “I believe Tom came to us with a good amount of this song written already, and I really loved how bouncy that opening riff is. It’s not necessarily a standard hardcore-sounding part and reminded me of something almost in the At the Drive-In or Refused wheelhouse, and I was excited to work out vocals for something like that.
“I think the first couple times we played through it together, we had a different part for the ending, but it didn't feel like it had the right level of impact, so we changed it to have this little breakdown at the end. We have played this song a lot already, and I still look forward to that end part every time.”
The song also displays Cure’s shifting lyrical approach. While many of the earlier songs dealt with personal struggles and existential dread, the vocalist is looking at the bigger picture on This World is Yours and You Can’t Refuse It, expressing how global issues affect not only himself but those around him.
“The songs are still very personal for me, but in a different way,” he explains. “I'd say that this record does definitely express some viewpoints on politics. I have a tendency to approach that subject matter more obliquely when I write about it. Like, I have these views or feelings about where the problems in our world come from, but I am writing about their effect on my life and emotional states instead of the standard direct critique or invective.”
Cure describes “Unlimited Hangout” specifically: “There's a tactic used by PR and intelligence professionals called a Limited Hangout, which is basically a damage control strategy that is deployed when a group is engaged in a cover-up of criminal activity or corruption and the cover story starts to fall apart. To minimize reputational damage, the people involved will admit a small portion of the truth in order to stop further inquiry and quarantine attention to the least negative aspects of the situation. So, you hang out a little bit of the truth to misdirect and shape a media narrative.
“The wealthy and powerful used to engage in these attempts to sanitize their reputations, appear fit for leadership, or be seen as moral and trustworthy in public. More recently, though, it seems like social and political elites have stopped trying to do this completely. They now seem comfortable openly acting with impunity while our material conditions deteriorate.”
“Unlimited Hangout” is a taste of the record, which expands further on the elements presented in the song. A while back, Spiritkiller printed a shirt that declares, “This is Our Revolution,” and that sentiment resonates throughout This World is Yours and You Can’t Refuse It.
“Now, we are a more seamless version of ourselves, if that makes sense,” Cure says. “I feel like that’s a real accomplishment in some ways, but I also feel like people are still gonna come up to me after shows and say that we remind them of Refused or Snapcase or At the Drive-In. That's cool; I love all those bands too.”
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This World is Yours and You Can’t Refuse It wilI be out November 20 via Immigrant Sun Records (preorder).
Spiritkiller on social media: Instragram
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