Careless - I Wish You Away

Labels: Couchpunx/Flood Floorshows/La Agonia De Vivir/Tell Wilhelm Records/Through Love Records/Zegema Beach Records

Formats: Vinyl/Digital

Release Date: 14 Feb 2015

Tracklist:

1. Small Hours

2. Mirror

3. Roda Fingrar

4. Pale As China

5. Kintsukuroi

6. Jag Kan Inte Dromma Som Dig

7. Jag Hatar Magnus Ladulåsgatan

8. Sad Statements

9. Sodra Station

10. Falsely Yours

Another Sunday and another ZBR roster review, which excites me more than you know. It's also the final release that formed a Swedish trio, alongside Via Fondo and I Love Your Lifestyle back in late 2014/early 2015. I Wish You Away was the first LP to come from Careless and was pressed on 300 copies, with 200 on black and 100 on mixed grey vinyl. It turned out to be the band's only full-length.

For many, Sweden is the epicentre of Europe’s screamo/post-hard community and it’s hard to argue with that sentiment, when so many bands have emerged from the country in recent years. Careless are (or were) one of those bands and I Wish You Away was their only full-length. Opening with the gentle tones of ‘Small Hours that builds slowly with layers of subtle dissonance, throughout it’s near six-minute length. It’s instrumental for the majority of it’s playing time, but being a screamo song it bursts into life towards the end with cinematic, heavy post-hardcore that gets faster as it goes. It seems strange to say this but it you’re looking for a song that sums up Careless and you’ve never listened to them before, then ’Small Hours’ is for you.

Things become slightly more chaotic from here on in with ‘Mirror’ and it’s uptempo emo that has roots in earlier screamo/emo. The mix of jangly guitar work, harsh screams and cleaner spoken word/shouting makes it harder to pin down yet music-wise it’s jam packed with twists and turns, while never losing it’s melody. Careless is one of those bands that aren’t afraid of mixing Swedish lyric songs, alongside their English songs and the first one of those is ‘Roda Fingrar’. I always love it when bands sing in their native language because it tends to give their music more feeling. Sorry if that comes across as a bit ignorant, I’m English and while I dabble in French a little, I can’t speak any other languages enough to call myself educated.

They have a real knack of making every song sound really expansive on I Wish You Away and dare I say it, there’s a touch of Japanese screamo influence in it as well. That’s what I get from the song-writing and phrasing on ‘Pale As China’ anyway. It’s so great to listen to! I got a terrible night’s sleep and as a result I feel pretty tired today, but the energy of ‘Kintsukuroi’ is helping me to power through this morning. It’s energy comes from the tempos and percussion, which take on many forms throughout the course of the song, before Careless slows it down towards the end via the addition of more cinematic atmosphere and riffs. It signals the progression to the record’s second half in a really nice way.

Being a screamo album, you’re never too far away from long song titles and ‘Jag Kan Inte Dromma Som Dig’ is one of those song titles, though maybe not be design but more due to translation. That’s kind of an irrelevant point though, not really sure why I wrote it but whatever. It’s still an awesome song filled with harsher screamo and even some black metal-like shrieks in places. ‘Jag Hatar Magnus Ladulasgatan’ follows on in much the same vein. It’s another one that’s a bit more mid-paced and fuller in delivery. I think that’s one characteristic that marks this album out. It’s quite long compared to a lot of more recent screamo/post-hardcore albums and there’s no real gravitation to emoviolence either. That’s not a bad thing by any means though, as it just means the album is more consistent as a whole and isn’t as brain-melting. 

The production, mixing and mastering is another element that I haven’t touched upon yet. It’s very true to the sound that Careless wanted to create. It’s clean when it needs to be but also has the right level of rawness as well. For example, during most songs you can audibly hear the bass rumbling within the mix, making it much more three dimensional. ’Sad Statements’ exhibits that well, alongside the emotion it references, which is synonymous with emo/screamo. That just makes it more heartfelt. There’s no loss in momentum either, which can sometimes be a problem on longer albums or for listeners with short attention spans. For example, the album’s penultimate song ‘Sodra Station’ stretches to six minutes and while that may turn some people off, you should do your best not to let it, as you’ll miss out on so much. 

Ending with ‘Falsely Yours’, Careless injects one last dose of emotion and reality into I Wish You Away with a slightly stripped back approach and some piercing feedback, which seems to manifest itself in the form of anger as it rings out. It’s quite disorientating and it leads to a noisy closing section that’s amongst the heaviest this album has seen. This is certainly one album that you’ll need to listen to in a full sitting. Careless made it so that I Wish You Away contains impact even long after the band themselves have gone quiet. It’s subtle impact but it buries itself deep and in it’s own way, cleanses you. We must never let music like this die.

You can stream I Wish You Away in full and purchase it as a name-your-price download directly from Careless below:-

Careless - https://www.facebook.com/careless08

You can still buy physical copies below:-

Through Love Records - https://shop.throughloverec.com/collections/releases/products/careless-i-wish-you-away

Couchpunx - https://www.facebook.com/couchpunxshows/

Flood Floorshows - https://www.facebook.com/floodhardcore

La Agonia De Vivir - https://www.facebook.com/laagoniadevivir.records

Tell Wilhelm Records - https://www.facebook.com/tellwilhelmrecords/

Though Love Records - https://www.facebook.com/ThroughLoveRec

Zegema Beach Records - https://www.facebook.com/zegemabeachrecords