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Linger - “Hope you are Finding Sleep…” (2022)


With age I have become very picky with the music I listen to, especially when it comes to discovering new bands. There always seems to be missing a piece of two; the vocals, the guitars, the whole atmosphere, something is always out of place, and when this happens, I go back to the records I heard a thousand times before. Absurd. Is it possible that kids forgot how to play and write music? Or maybe I am old and unable to adapt. I am going with the first one, screw you!


However, once in a while, we get struck by something that makes us rethink if our approach is the right one. “Hope you are Finding Sleep…” - fucking loved the title, as I have not yet found sleep - “slapped” me in the face 2 days ago, as I came across it while checking a new Portuguese Hardcore Fanzine - Rise Above Fanzine - and I was immediately left in awe! Mendes, Belo, Fabiana, Gonçalo, and Luís, are LINGER, a Portuguese Post Hardcore band. Given my age, the term Post is always a thing that grinds my gears. Joy Division was Post Punk… fuck you, Joy Division was Joy Division, a band that emerged from the Punk scene, but not Punk… prove me wrong. Back to LINGER… independently of what genre they play, they slay. 4 tracks, not very long - amen, brothers & sisters - that kick you around, slap you hard, and leave you on the side of the dusty country road. But not all is violence. “Idle Hands” has a very Melodic Hardcore feeling to it, and I enjoy it. I dare say this is their weakest track, even though it is not weak in any way. less “in your face”, less violent, the band takes a different route, and it worked out pretty well. You can hear the bloody bass AHAH win. People tend to forget about the bass (not Meghan Trainor, we are well aware of that), but not these lads. Once we are done, we embark on another violent endeavor, and there goes the bass again. Aaah, got to love it. It gives it that kick, that extra-heaviness! And then all comes together, and you are dead, finito, capute, over. And the reference? Wendy Torrance? Gimme a hug, peepz!


Once it ends, you jump back into it and start all over. And even if we are direct to the heaviness and aggressiveness of the tracks, they all have a very melodic facet, and once we are able to focus on that, the aggressive side becomes the perfect symbiosis very much.  The vocals are what you would expect from the genre, and I am very ok with that, so it all goes very well together. I would love to know what these musicians’ background is, just to put things into a different perspective and understand how they reached this sound, which not being an innovative offering, it sounds good as Hell. Just forget about me and go check these guys. Cheeri-o, twats!

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