The News Can Wait

2012 was a good reminder of the golden age for post-hardcore enthusiasts. Legends At The Drive-In and Refused woke up from their comas to bless us with countless performances that reminded many of us of better times, before the genre completely collapsed beneath all the clones who emerged and bastardize it. Witnessing these reunions prompted many to ask themselves, "What happened?" Not in a sense of those bands' respective sounds, but the open-mindedness both bands showed towards their approach to music. While other genres have shown innovation throughout the past decade, post-hardcore had, with some exceptions, become much blander. The acts carrying the torch have been undeserving of the honor, and it’s time for a new voice. Musicians are beginning to step up to the plate, and four-piece Texas band The News Can Wait is one of the newest acts to truly do so with their newest EP, Cloud Factory.

Cloud Factory is an eye-opening, fluid, comfort in discomfort acid trip. From the Vaudeville guitars that haunt the introduction to "Feel The Void", to the Chino Moreno-esque vocal melodies throughout the EP, to the abundance of 3/4 time measures, The News Can Wait are unafraid. They simultaneously pulverize and serenade with tastefully distorted guitar tones, a strong bass presence, and complicated yet digestible drum patterns and fills. The dynamics between the instruments match the contents of the music itself flawlessly, appearances of dissonance only serve to further the emotions instead of detract from them. On "Phantom Feels" vocalist Chad Webster sings "But the feel is far too real for me to float above them!" and then echoes the sentiments as the music strips down to drums and bass and his voice begins to drown beneath them. Each song simultaneously presents musical maturity and fearless naivety, childlike wonder backed by an adult sense of direction. The News Can Wait presents numerous dualities like this throughout their music, including the contradiction of melody and destruction that many bands claim to attempt and few execute properly, including the lyrical presentation that exuberates both swagger and vulnerability, an impenetrable confidence in every conflict presented. Webster's closing croon of "Was it everything you wished for?" in "Drugrats" is a taunt laced in genuine pity before the instruments and screams from Marcus Lopez come back in to strip away the pity, leave the bare bones of their content in the perpetrator's discontent. Throughout Cloud Factory, The News Can Wait assumes the role of their own deities, crucifying themselves so no one else has to.

The golden age doesn't have to end. It never did. The beauty of music is its timelessness, and although its hard to judge what will stand the test of time, it's easy to see when music goes in the right direction. As Refused closed one of their last performances in Austin, a performance I was lucky enough to witness, frontman Dennis Lyxzen unapologetically screamed the last lines of "Tannhauser/Derive", which begins with the question "So where do we go from here?", a question that echoed through my mind for months after the performance. The News Can Wait is one of the acts closest to the answer.