Crowquill is a song much in the same vein as Same Shade as Concrete, with lyrical highlights dotted actross its sonic landscape: it’s status as a metasong is ensured by the lines ‘nothing’s quite so pure as the written word’ and ‘nothing so puerile as meter and rhyme’. Drew and Kathy’s vocals once again come into their own, with Drew’s harshness melding wonderfully with the relatively cleanliness of Kathy’s muted screams. In the Nervous Light once again shows CTTS’ predilection for the blending of the harsh and soft with little care taken for consistence. Around half-way into the track, a harsh, cat-like yell from Kathy shows excellently the broadest end of their hardcore influence; Drew’s vocals also show an uncharacteristic turn in this song: they take an approach of sprechgesang for a short time leading to the heaviest part of the album yet. Their musical dichotomies and lack of a gradient between heavy and light make for an unpredictable yet rewarding sonic experience.

Interview at the Ruins is somewhat of a radical departure from the rest of the album thus far. What appears to be piano resonance leads into the playing of a single clean guitar and piano; and from their drums are introduced with the tell-tale bass-dominance of Jay Wynne’s drumming. Screaming is introduced soon enough, as well as an overdriven electric guitar: this, whilst similar in terms of instrumentation to the earlier songs, is a different sound; one more laid back and reflective. No eccentric chord sequences: just pretty lead playing amidst drone-esque chanting of ‘a murmur from the ruins echoes softly as the roots undo, and the branch becomes’ towards the end of the song. The motif introduced during the introduction rears its head again; and it’s that which makes this album special: a sense of concept. Track five, Non-Objective Portrait of Karma, carries on with the theme of not pandering to any expectation which may have resulted from the prior half of the album: Godspeed!-like drone introduces the discernible playing of a lone guitar, then bass, then vocals, then drums. The gradual increase in tempo of guitar playing is met to the beat by Speziale’s talking-come-screaming, and this synergy between vocals and instrumentation is met further by Kathy Coppola.

Kill the Switch boasts the potentially dubious honour of being the longest track on the album: it risks being called overwrought or overlong. Fortunately, it is neither and could be considered as a song of several movements: initial brutality and immediacy making may for a short instrumental interlude further moving into a passage of question-and-answer vocals from both Speziale and Coppola. The theme of rebirth put across by ‘I know it’s all been done before, I want to do it again’ is truly inspirational amidst the context of insistent drum beats and guitar chords. A Crater to Cough in sees the ultimate return of that motif in an almost post-rocky interpretation: accompanied by trebly guitars with the slightest of delay applied to their playing. This introduces an initial attack of Pelican-like playing to serve as the background for the vocal battle of both Speziale and Coppola.

This album is incredibly cohesive, if only for the reappearance the first thing you hear throughout the album; and it’s both better and worse for it. The use of such a motif allows for the conceptualisation of the album as being about the birth and rebirth of character and the quest for self-realisation, which is greta if you really want to hear an album. However, if you’re merely listening to it passively, it does bring with it the feeling of deja entendu. In spite of this, the album is still magnificent instrumentally and vocally and truly a milestone in terms of 00’s hardcore.