It’s odd to see emo that actually stands out, and Clean Fight is exactly that. Their debut EP Unforgiving Ground isn’t just the casual listen; I’d say you let it inhabit a day with you. At least, that’s what I did. The EP over-delivers on every account, since even with an emo sound, it’s not straightforwardly boxed into any genre. It excels at anything it tries its hand at. There’s a lot to come back to on second or even third re-listens, so I recommend listening on bigger speakers.
For fans of Sweet Pill and other bands that integrate unconventional song structure, the project boasts many songs around or past the five-minute mark, making for a curiously complete experience you don’t usually find in four-track EPs. The first song serves a stacked order as both lead single and a very acclimating start to the project. “Reckless Driver”, spoken through grit and a place for blame, really does reel you in.
“MYHF” (an acronym for “My Heart, Your Forehead”) is the longest of the four tracks, sitting at seven minutes. A very present bass breaks the line to signal the start of the track. It’s borderline hypnotic. The harmonics hit, and you suddenly realize the severity of the song that’s about to hit you. It starts off like an In Rainbows B-side, gradually moves into contemporary emo, and ends on an extremely jumpy indie line. It’s stuff that reads good on paper and is even better executed. None of it is filler and there’s a tasteful amount of mixing. The song’s styles don’t switch hard, but instead they bloom and play and interact, like they were natural extensions of each other. It pains me to not be hearing this live right now.
“Empty Me Out” — much like its name would suggest — is a slower track, with new elements found in an opposing, lower voice offering a response to the calls we’ve heard from vocalist Kelsey thus far. Probably the most grounded of the bunch, it seeps into a more careful, almost subdued intro that eventually rises like the rest of their songs.
‘Pay It Forward’ then sees Julian take over singing duties completely, passing the baton for the last lap. The band shoots into a more homemade feel for the closer, and stays at an intense red line, with an instrumental that feels like they cranked their pedals the extra mile. The screams feel like giving up the ghost, in a resolution that would probably pull teardrops from your eyes at a house show. It’s more on the raw side of things we see during the record, and it’s a cool inversion from the typical loose-to-tight progression we see on a lot of longer music formats. To me, it reads as disintegration.
I personally felt like I needed to check their socials out after finishing the EP, and as it turns out, they’re incredibly active. Take note to catch bands of this caliber at this stage of their career, for it doesn’t always happen, much less at a point where they’re still intimate enough to tell you the guitarist’s favorite color (it’s green!).
Unforgiving Ground (fantastically titled, btw) is a ridiculously strong debut for a band, and while every song is necessary in its own right, I’m not sure I could listen to just one of them at a time.
Written by Charlotte Lacambra
