Album of the Week: Title Fight Hyperview

Any time musicians makes a major sonic shift, it's worth taking a look at where they started. It's difficult to ever really escape where one comes from, and even when Dylan went electric or Kanye West jettisoned hip-hop on 808's and Heartbreak, their roots remain inescapable.

The albums in Title Fight's back catalogue lean heavily toward emo-hardcore – aggressive, yowling albums designed more for bashing into the person next to you than paying attention to the lyrics or music.

These early recordings make the shift to the swirling guitars and drowned-out vocals of Hyperview a much more jarring experience, but while the sounds are different, it's a more mature and deep experience than anything the Pennsylvania quartet has created before.

Any time a band shifts into shoegaze territory, familiar names get thrown around by writers – my bloody valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen – and they are useful names to keep in mind while thinking about the genre. Title Fight definitely taps into the sonic palette created by these groups, but I hear the influence of Nirvana's style clearly ringing out from the dense music.

The album opens with "Murder Your Memory," a gorgeous two-minute thesis statement that buries singer Jamie Rhoden's chanting of "murder all your memories" under avalanches of distorted guitars and reverb. He and the band go on to do just that as the album gets underway.

Title Fight keep ahold of their punk efficiency throughout the half-hour album, and keep things moving even when the songs' tempos slow down. And it's those slow songs that are the best offerings on Hyperview. "Your Pain Is Mine Now" is so fucking gorgeous that it will take your breath away if you let it, and "Liar's Love" is a painful lament from a person who has wronged their love too many times.

The most ambitious song here is "Trace Me Onto You," which goes along with the my bloody valentine vibe exactly like you expect, and then two thirds of the way in, the music fades – save for a lone note – and the band comes back in with a lovely ballad, all crooned vocals and shimmering guitars.

I run into the same problem on Hyperview that I do with a lot of shoegaze music – I have no idea what the lyrics are. Certainly, making the listener work to hear the words can be immensely rewarding when done properly (I'm thinking particularly of The War on Drugs' and Perfect Pussy's albums from last year) but try as I might, I can only make out a word here and there on these songs, which makes full connection to the ideas a tenuous ask.

When you can hear the vocals, as on "Dizzy" and "Rose of Sharon," Rhoden's voice has the same delivery and ache that Kurt Cobain brought to all Nirvana's songs. "Hypernight," with its bass-driven beat and howling vocals is the clearest sign Title Fight started as a hardcore band, but also shows the most growth as a unit. It's also the song Rhoden most channels Cobain, and provides an interesting look at a direction Nirvana could have followed in another life.

To me, the clearest connection to Nirvana comes in just how skillfully, and subtly, Title Fight weave catchy guitar hooks into the songs here. Nirvana was just so damn good at crafting their sound they got to the point that they were able to put their hooks just a little behind all the noise, and they still worked just as well – that's a lesson Title Fight has learned well here.

Your affection for Hyperview will likely depend on how long you can enjoy guitar feedback and vocals just out the range of understanding, but for those who love the mood and attention to detail required from the album, it will likely to go on to be a favorite of the year. To those listeners, the message of Hyperview is loud and clear.

Hyperview is out on Anti.