Reformulating some of their debut album’s mix of hardcore and folk (it’s aptly named Violence), Truck Violence delivers a more suffocating and altogether weary vision of the world. Not without reason: increasing climate catastrophes globally and rising fascism in the Western sphere have inspired the band, undoubtedly. The weathervane is my body, though, finds a glimpse of light amidst the hail.
Their first album under San Franciscan label The Flenser, Truck Violence keeps up with traditions of old-school hardcore, starting with DIY production and a straight edge attitude sprinkled with a healthy dose of irony. Particularly straight edge in its eco-sensibilities, the record reckons with the good of nature and its human-made destruction, in part with the blend of hardcore with wistful folk music, one that is unfortunately too often overpowered by the former. This is what makes the Montreal-based outfit stand out from countless other post-hardcore outfits, though — this tension created on the meeting ground between the wailings of the genres, the two making light of an unjust world in aesthetically opposite ways. Just like they establish in “Compelled by Christy”, followed by “House caught fire”.
“Kindly, wash yourself” is the refreshing Thursday-circa-2001-like conclusion of the record, a part-Midwest emo, part-folk, part-hardcore anthem, each part linked with the repeated “Wash yourself clean / Can’t wash clean of everything”. From quiet devastation to breakdowns, each element, like the lyrics to the acoustic guitar riffs and resonant drums, feels like a message that echoes in a round chamber. It is both the gnawing feeling of screaming into the void and the relief from being joined in by others and their pain, the possibility to scrape the dirt off of you while knowing that you are bound to still have blood on your hands when you live in a developed capitalist country. Building up from the previous songs – the washing machine effect from the rhythm on “Compelled by Christy” and feelings of losing your identity in a ruthless system in “Your name, it’s walking” (“My own face / I’m just trying to remember it”) – the full stop of the record feels like the long-awaited release of accumulated tensions, leaving on a somewhat relative, if not positive, note. The weathervane is my body – it’s in the title – proclaims above all that the body, weathered and pushed down as it may be, still knows to stand up and move in the right direction. And does hold stronger surrounded by a community.
