LP - $17.25
STREET DATE: 4/3/26
CAT#: PRO-112
LABEL: Protagonist Music
There is a specific kind of architectural tension that exists in the New Jersey suburbs—a sense of being boxed in by history while staring down an uncertain, industrial horizon. It’s an environment that birthed some of the most visceral hardcore of the last two decades, and it’s the soil from which Demmers has emerged. On their debut full-length, Forced Perspective, the band strips away the distortion of their heavy-music pedigree to reveal something colder, sharper, and deeply haunting.
The album’s lead single, “Say It” serves as the record's mission statement, capturing the weary, mid-tempo angst of Disintegration-era The Cure while maintaining a lean, athletic muscularity. While Demmers clearly counts the monochromatic majesty of The Chameleons and The Sound as north stars, Forced Perspective is no mere exercise in 80s worship. The nine-song collection is informed by the members’ history in the hardcore scene—a past life that manifests here not in volume, but in a relentless velocity and intent that also echoes the emotional weight of Sunny Day Real Estate and Mineral.
Recorded with an eye toward sparse arrangements, the record allows for a specific kind of sonic claustrophobia where the vocals hover with a quiet, inward-looking intensity. It is the sound of a band internalizing the bleak urgency of their predecessors and sharpening it into a weapon for the 2020s, resulting in a debut that is as uncompromising as it is introspective.
TRACK LISTING:
01. Love Me Again
02. Say It
03. Turn Away
04. Nothing To Prove
05. Forced Perspective
06. Among The Thorns
07. Stay In The Dimness
08. Flowers
09. Bleeding The Inside
MARKETING POINTS:
- Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered by John Naclerio (Brand New, Senses Fail) at Nada Recording Studio
- Art design by Brian Burdzy (Hundreds of AU, Lesser Minds)
FOR FANS OF:
The Chameleons, The Cure, Sunny Day Real Estate, The True Faith, Mineral