Respire – “Cicatrice”

David Pike

Respire – “Cicatrice”

David Pike

The Toronto screamo sextet Respire make grand, crashing, gut-churning music that combines majestic post-rock grace with searing black metal intensity. Later this year, they’ll follow up their 2018 album Dénouement with a new one called Black Line. Respire have already shared first single “Tempest,” and it rules. Today, they’ve shared another song, and it rules, too.

The new “Cicatrice” is the track that immediately follows “Tempest” on Black Line. On “Cicatrice,” Respire bring an even more volatile combination of aggressive grind and grand melody. The new track starts out as a punishing attack, but it moves quickly into beauty, with violin and trumpet adding whole new dimensions, even as the harder elements come back in. Like “Tempest” before it, “Cicatrice” feels like an absolute epic at five minutes. The song’s lyrics address an all-pervading hopelessness in poetic language: “We’re all disease/ Destroy, destroyer/ Curse against the tides/ Writhe against the call.”

Director Vanessa Gloux has made a very cool video for “Cicatrice.” It artfully captures the band thrashing out in a living room, using smart editing and slo-mo to get the most out of a low-budget music-video setup that wouldn’t ordinarily grab your attention too hard. It can’t be easy for bands to summon the visceral power of a live show during quarantine, but Gloux and Respire come pretty close here. Check it out below.

Black Line is out 12/4 on Church Road Records. It was originally set for a November release on Holy Roar, but Respire, like many other bands, left that label after the sexual abuse allegations against its founder. You can pre-order the album here.

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