Review: Thirdface, Do It With a Smile

In an interview with We Are The Pit, Thirdface’s vocalist, Kathryn Edwards, admits to being a bit of a rule-breaker when it comes to heavy music: “Some people focus really hard on like, ‘And this is when the breakdown happens. And this is when I say the thing that everyone in the crowd says back to me.’ We don’t think about any of those sorts of things at all.” Her words speak to an unwritten decree in hardcore, which states that every part of a song should be geared toward crowd participation: The breakdown is for clear-the-floor dancing, the fast part is for the circle pit, and the sing-a-along is a chance to stage-dive or jump on top of friends and strangers while yelling your favorite lyrics. Such conventions may make for heart-pounding shows. But they can also box in musicians, leading them to gear their tunes toward the crowd instead of their own creative will.

Nashville hardcore band Thirdface doesn’t forget the audience so much as they challenge them to rethink the guidelines of heavy music, much like their forebearers Converge. On their debut full-length, Do It With a Smile, Thirdface brings punk, metal, hardcore, and grind to a rollicking boil, melting their influences down to the point where it’s difficult to locate the individual fragments. “Local” snaps from punishing blast beats to psychedelic doom-metal all in a minute and twenty-six seconds. “Grasping at the Root” kicks off in the vein of ‘80s hardcore with chugging power chords and shout-along backup chants before dissolving into a crippling breakdown. Though there’s hardly a genre of heavy music that Thirdface leaves untouched, their sound is grounded in the fury of bands like Bad Brains and Black Flag, influences that never wander far from the fray.

It’s one thing to bend genres, it’s another to write compelling songs. While it’s obvious that Thirdface can shred, the quartet forgoes individual glory to bind together for the good of the music. On the abrupt track “Chosen,” Shibby Poole’s spastic drum fills march in lockstep with David Reichley’s shrieking guitar, bringing the song’s final moments to calculated eruption. Maddy Madeira’s rattling bass guitar rings clearly in the mix, providing murky depth for the album’s ripping opener, “Customary.” On “Villians!”, the sludgy low-end tones provide an eerie contrast to Kathryn Edwards’ diatribes on economic inequality: “Same shit, different day / We work our fingers to the bone for dying wage,” she snarls with authority. Edwards’ cries against capitalism sound desperate, not preachy, matching the anger and hopelessness of a national workforce marred by unemployment, low wages, and a lack of healthcare.

On Do It With a Smile, Thirdface exceeds the lofty expectations set by its 2018 demo, a demonstration of righteous aggression. It’s not the first band to unite so many genres of heavy music under one roof — bands like Converge and Refused blurred these same lines decades ago. But when it comes to playing those influences with artistry and near-perfect execution — and assembling them into a mosaic of raw energy — Thirdface is currently in a league of its own.

Check out Do It With a Smile on Bandcamp below.