A debut album, and already a rare alignment: 80/100 on Album of the Year, three reviews, three times 80. Anthony Fantano (The Needle Drop, 8/10) sums up the stakes in one line: « No Cure update the straight edge ethos on their debut album. » Kerrang! (4/5) invokes a « barbaric majesty » the Alabama band will struggle to surpass themselves, and Distorted Sound (8/10) calls it « an essential listen for the current climate ». The public agrees: 79/100 across 500-plus ratings.
What everyone agrees on: identity, claimed down to the bone. Metalcore soaked in deathcore and beatdown, southern and furious, on SharpTone — an LP « simultaneously screaming out into the void and uplifting those who hear it », per Jasmine Longhurst. Distorted Sound insists it is « this unwavering and unapologetic identity » that built their following, and the record — « gritty, explosive » — will only widen it.
What divides: pretty much nothing, which is almost frustrating for the exercise. Three identical scores, a public in tune, no dissenting voice found — only degrees of enthusiasm between Distorted Sound’s « essential » and Fantano’s more measured 8. A mechanical, deserved verdict: 8/10. The darkness the title promises is already here, and it bites.