GEL
Persona (Blue Grape Music)
release date: 8/16/24
by Scott Deckman
According to label Blue Grape Music, GEL can’t be stopped. The band wastes little time getting down on EP Persona, a sub-13-minute shot of hardcore. The recording flies by. The band does the thunkathunkthunk well enough, though not as consistently fast as it did on previous release, Only Constant, or say, Zeke on Hellbender (who does?). And they do it with a metallic edge. Singer Sami Kaiser’s voice sounds a bit forced, but it comes with the genre.
The guitars on Persona are thick and angry, but melody lurks. On the EP, Kaiser sings songs about personal demons and how she’s working through them. Single “Mirage” is loud and stompy and features, what else, a breakdown, plus a sideways guitar solo tacked on the caboose. Both “Shame” and “Persona” incorporate isolated vocal/spoken-wordish segments that seem out of place. In particular, this neuters the former, otherwise a concrete “fuck you.” “Persona” is a somewhat disjointed, pummeling speedster with a chugachugchug breakdown. “Martyr,” maybe the EP’s best song, is a melodic stomper which at times sports quick tempos, though I wish the band eschewed the slower part in the song’s second half and kept the pedal to the metal. “Vanity” is a mostly mid-tempo, metal-infused middle finger at someone or something (if I could find the lyric sheet, I’d tell you).
I hear they’ve been playing festivals in Europe. Good for them. They got your catharsis.
