Sweet Jesus

You Destroy Yourself (2015)

I withdraw my question.

Five years, several stray songs, an EP on Triple B Records, and a number of infrequent shows later, southern New England’s often dubbed hardcore supergroup, Sweet Jesus, gets a proper full length release on Atomic Action Records. Fronted by Pat Flynn of the retired Have Heart, You Destroy Yourself offers a creative escape with a sound unlike his old bands, or those of other members’ (Drop Dead, Soul Control); it’s free flowing, but tight, well performed, and well produced. This is a collection of musicians well familiar with all aspects of hardcore. Many bands claim to be about artistic freedom, but end up within the same boxes as their peers, this isn’t the case with Sweet Jesus, as, at the very least, any of the peers one could associate with them… no longer exist.

The DC hardcore sound from yesteryear is prevalent and well noted throughout You Destroy Yourself. It sounds like Swiz, because it’s supposed to; going so far as having Shawn Brown (vocalist for Swiz, Dag Nasty, among others) appear on “Same Man,” a declarative track signifying change in the self, “I’m not the same man,” shouted repeatedly, over the grooviest basslines on the album. There is great contrast throughout the 10 tracks, ranging from stop and go shredding in the heartbroken “Stonefaced,” to the fast, punk forward “Bedsick,” to the traditional DC hardcore feeling “Light of the Sun” and “Goliath.” It’s a modernized Dischord Records roster’s worth of sounds.

Most interesting is “Destroy Yourself,” which the album is closely titled by. For a little over two minutes, the element of cinemacore is present, as an excerpt of Richard Nixon delivering his farewell address is played within the backtrack of deep, lurking bass and the most prevalent drums on the album, as guitars wind in and out. Coming off as a spoken word track, the artistic nature is layered, You Destroy Yourself is representative of the freedom in changing, for better or worse, as Nixon’s reading is a quote from Theodore Roosevelt describing his deceased daughter in his diary. It’s pretty meta for a hardcore album, reinforcing Sweet Jesus’ musical purpose. And album art.

Will You Destroy Yourself spawn a DCHC revival? One can only dream. This album is more than just a Swiz clone, it’s borrowing from an old style, and doing it complete justice, but open to change, shaking off single genre constraints. Sweet Jesus isn’t trying to reinvent hardcore, just remind the listener that hardcore has changed, and will change again. Just get together with some people and make inspired art, you’ll be the ones making the next change.