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Self-described Real ‘Fake Emo’ act Coup D’état are genuine in their earnest detailing of derailment on their debut album.

Release date: December 13, 2024 | Yetzer Hara Records / Tomb Tree | Instagram | Bandcamp

We enter winter once again. With the frost and lights hung with care for many there also comes a certain sense of doom and gloom. Call it seasonal affective disorder or just a case of the sads. What purports to be a time of joy and celebration can also bring about a somber clouded over haze. A few options present themselves when faced with the choice of how to react to things such as these. Clench your teeth and white knuckle your way through. Or wallow down into the mire bathing in the sorrow. For those going the latter route looking for another soundtrack to the struggle, for anyone who messed with Alexisonfire, Circle Takes The Square, or The Fall Of Troy back in the day, as I most certainly did and still do, have I got a record for you!

What Happens After the Epilogue…? OR What Happens When the Dust Settles? When the Book Closes, Does Another Open? Do the Dead Return? Can Those Who Survive Ever Forgive Themselves? What Happens After the Epilogue? Just plain Epilogue for short, is the debut album from Coup D’état of British Columbia. Call them metallic hardcore, screamo, or skramz. Epilogue hits the same and it hits hard. After a bare but building piano intro track, Epilogue gets right into the thick of it. “New Hampshire Does Not Exist” is a sledgehammer of an opener. Coup D’état went for the kill early on this track. I cannot wait to two-step to this monster down in the pit. If the band can brave the journey down to California from the frigid north lands that is. (Hint hint.)

Screamo as a genre is as wide and varied as its myriad interpretations by classic bands beyond number. The individual records themselves however do on occasion have a tendency to be monotonous. By sticking rigidly to a predetermined atonal archetype, all the songs risk ending up sounding the same. Nothing could be further from the case on Epilogue. The songs presented here shift wildly between vocal styles, influences, instrumentation, length, and tempo. It’s unpredictable and kaleidoscopic. Representing the very best of what screamo has to offer as an art form. Sitting with discomfort and challenging complacency are foundational to the genre. Emotional outbursts with a flair for the dramatic are its bedrock. You’ll find all of this and more here over Epilogue’s dense 18 minute runtime.

I have a confession to make. I normally abhor intros and interludes. I despise fade outs. Skits on rap albums are skips for me. I usually remove gap tracks and outros from my playlists. However on Epilogue the transitory moments serve to enhance the record, not distract. From the piano intro track with its atmospheric dusty lofi pops to the spoken word on “The Ides of March” and “A Promise From the Barrel of a .357”. Perhaps most especially on the schizophrenically short “Kids These Days Don’t Know the Meaning of Surveillance State” which is equal parts melancholic piano and punk rock blitz attack. It’s like a nice little aperitif before “Head, Meet Pavement”. Which also starts off with a brief instrumental before taking its own punk rock plunge. The strands of all these segues and variations pull together for a closer knit record.

“Promise” is working double duty for Coup D’état as both lead single and closing track extraordinaire. For my money it’s the best song on the album. Way to go out with a bang. If I had to pick the thing I love most from any band whether screamo or not, it would be overlapping vocals hands down. Whether it’s The Blood Brothers and pageninetynine yelling all over each other or Bullet for My Valentine, Currents, and Angelmaker. I love it all. “Promise” absolutely nails this volatile mixture of harsh and clean vocals in a way that is both nostalgic and fresh. All three band members contribute to vocals allowing for even more dynamics and interplay woven between them.

Beyond just being a killer song, “Promise” is lifting a heavy weight emotionally as well. The spoken word section strips away nearly all instrumentation and graphically details suicidal ideation. This moment is as raw and honest as anything I’ve heard all year. There is bravery in this sincere exhibition. Feelings like these desperately need to be expressed.

I once heard a depressive suicidal black metal band say in an interview that they write music for the miserable and lost in the hopes that one day they won’t need it anymore. Screamo fills a similar aching hole in my being that I definitely still need and in many ways hope I always will. Coup D’état holds a mirror up to the pain. Not to look away from, but to embrace in a shared catharsis. To anyone who has ever struggled with feelings within even a mile (kilometer?) of those like these detailed here of self-harm and annihilation I will not insult you with empty platitudes like ‘It gets better.’ Too often it simply doesn’t. But what I will say which is absolutely true is that you are not alone. We suffer together, not in silence.

A late entry as we put a bow on 2024 and brace for what the new year will bring. Coup D’état have ultimately given a kind of gift. In the midst of all the greyed out dread of darker days and colder nights there is a sort of joy. If only by screaming the poison out. Epilogue is all the words left on the tomb after we walk away from the self we used to be. Not necessarily stronger or better, but surviving. Compact and fierce, Epilogue rips off clean. Like peeling away a Band-Aid from the soul and damned if you don’t end up cleansed of at least a few of your demons afterwards.

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