Touché Amoré
Spiral in a Straight Line
RISE
Touché Amoré isn’t a perfect band. And no hardcore-punk band oughta be. Were every note on their records perfectly placed, executed with precision, and “corrected” during the production and mixing processes, its creators would undercut its whole purpose. Corporate record labels demand that the punk records they fund be imbued with the same sterile, glossy atmosphere that makes cubicle-lined workplaces so miserable. They’re intentionally designed to stifle art that speaks the truth, like Spiral in a Straight Line does so eloquently on the rousing “Hal Ashby” and “Force of Habit”; that invites imaginative thought, which the white-hot numbers “Mezzanine” and “Altitude” do; that quells and quashes authority, as do “Nobody’s” and “Finalist”; and celebrates those who dare pursue individualism, a sentiment Touché Amoré demonstrates is actually nothing new by roping in indie-rock vets Lou Barlow and Julien Baker for their sixth record.
If it weren’t for Touché Amoré, Title Fight, Turnstile, and a few other groups that emerged over the past 15 years seeking to resurrect the reckless abandon that guided punk through the ’70s and ’80s, throngs of young people might never have found hope in a fractured art form that so closely resembled fans’ own fractured selves. Touché Amoré in particular don’t seem to perceive their fanbase as so antisocial that they can’t freely exchange emotions; they just yearn to find others who are maybe as flawed as they are, but who have come to accept it. Punk undergoes overhauls and resurgences, like the movement taking place right now as technology tries to outwit artists who are onto something too many of us don’t want to talk about: our imminent demise.
The LA quintet’s first two albums, released after they formally established themselves in 2007, immediately laid down the proverbial gauntlet and proved to be the shape of punk to come. Touché Amoré’s masterpiece, 2013’s Is Survived By, miraculously had the same effect as its predecessors did, albeit on a much grander scale. With unchecked new technology blindsiding just about everyone, Is Survived By became rightly perceived as one of the 21st century’s first truly defiant resistance record cementing Touché Amoré’s standing as torchbearers of punk—and they only doubled down on their indignation with 2016’s Stage Four and 2020’s Lament.
Which brings us back to Spiral in a Straight Line, an album that posits how we’re unwaveringly spinning into our own graves, as if none of us have any agency when, in fact, we have plenty of it. There’s no need to mince words: Touché Amoré are so livid on this record—and justifiably so—that it’s no longer a lack of musicianship that results in a rugged sound; it’s anger that’s shaking them so deeply to their core that their lips tremble, their voices crack, and any attempt to stay calm, cool, and collected is abandoned. From start to finish, vocalist Jeremy Bolm is so furiously trying to explain to us why the time for sweating the small stuff is long gone. Spiral in a Straight Line is a story of a society that not only ought to know better, but actually does know better, yet chooses to do too little to immediately address the myriad catastrophes that have already arrived despite one of our worst genetic defects: wishful thinking.
Detractors of punk have long used one word to minimize, mock, and brush off the genre: “childish.” On Spiral in a Straight Line, Touché Amoré have matured so much that they’ve earned the right to reciprocate that vitriol. And boy do they ever.
