Source: Album Artwork
The north of England has always been a breeding ground for the heavier end of rock, churning out the likes of Bring Me The Horizon, While She Sleeps and Asking Alexandria. Blood Youth are yet another example, hailing from the North Yorkshire town of Harrogate and doing a fine job of keeping the scene alive. They formed from the ashes of relatively successful melodic hardcore band Climates, and have been a definitive force to be reckoned with ever since.
Diversity is something hard come by on the band’s brand new debut full-length, Beyond Repair, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Blood Youth are a band better suited to cohesivity, focusing on producing a stream line record where each cut flows into one another smoothly. There are no hidden tricks— it’s a no-frills hardcore album that’s perfect for the kind of music fan who doesn’t like too much fuss.
‘Making Waves‘ is the momentous opener, setting the bar high for the album as it pans out. There’s the perfect ratio of clean to unclean vocals, set to instrumentals that do enough to make a point but don’t overpower the more important aspects of the song. ‘What I’m Running From‘ then follows on, executed brilliantly and raising eyebrows from the very beginning of the record.
Arguably, you could say that Blood Youth are a band trying to bring a more commercial element to a genre that is so readily forgotten by the media. Their sharp hooks and huge choruses, like those present on ‘Reason To Stay‘, are a nod to a softer side of rock that can’t always be found in material painted with the ‘hardcore’ brush.
There’s no doubting that Blood Youth have a lot of things to carry on working with as they develop and grow. As a relativity new band, they have the opportunity to do this— they can learn from the experiences that they have in order to build themselves up into the future. Beyond Repair is the initial stepping stone; a solid, all-rounder record that will pave the way for brilliance if Blood Youth can use it correctly.
