Fiddlehead

The band again teamed with producer Chris Teti for their third record, and his punchy production captures Fiddlehead’s live energy while showcasing the massive guitars and undeniable catchiness that makes their music so immensely satisfying.

The album’s concise 27 minutes sound like a natural exten-sion of all of the band’s strengths, but is glued together by vocalist Pat Flynn’s singular tuneful roar. Flynn, since his time as the vocalist of Have Heart and now as Fiddlehead’s frontman, has earned a reputation as one of hardcore’s most thoughtful lyricists. He interweaves his ruminations on life, death, and all the joy and tragedy in between with references to Roman philosopher Lucretius; the author Jean Améry; other musicians like Bad Brains, Alex G, or Wire, and even references to the band’s own back catalogue.

The humanity across 'Death Is Nothing To Us' is palpable in every note. It’s the kind of art that observes pain with real honesty rather than prescribing a solution for it–and in doing so, inadvertently offers some sense of hopefulness. The album finds Fiddlehead so deeply delving into the pain, confusion, nuances, and contradictions of sadness, so willingly wrapping their arms around a concept as existentially baffling as death itself that they’ve created an album that is truly life-affirming. 'Death is Nothing to Us' exemplifies so much of what makes Fiddlehead a special band: taking these heady, unanswerable questions and wrestling with them in a very earthbound way, all wrapped up in the urgent power of a three minute punk song.