Description
.Stential “Memento Mori/Solving For Self Through Long Division” LP
An exciting New Jersey screamo band channeling the raw spirit of ’90s and early-2000s DIY hardcore. Complexity jostles with melody amidst piercing vocals, and crushing breakdowns. Chaos reigns. But not all the time.
This LP collects .stential’s EPs – Memento Mori (tape cassette on Oliver Glenn Records, 2025) and Solving For Self Through Long Division (self released CD, 2025) – on vinyl for the first time. Featuring nine tracks of intense, concept-driven emo-core, screamo, and metalcore centered around themes of mortality, identity and personal transformation. In the current resurgence of 90’s inspired screamy hardcore .stential are real stand-outs – partly due to an air of weirdness (the best screamo often has a touch of weirdo-eccentricity) and also the principle of injecting their own fresh ideas into the genre – which indirectly brings to my mind both Circle Takes The Square and early MewithoutYou… plus additional moments of mathy melody a la Algernon Cadwallader. None of which are obvious comparisons, (actually, the release-bio states that influences are drawn from Saetia, Orchid, Poison the Well and Disembodied) but, the spirit of Myspace-era metalcore and screamo is definitely present here.
