ALBUM REVIEW: Casey - ‘How To Disappear’ | The Soundboard (2024)

There are some people for whom this will already be their most anticipated album of 2024. Hell, it might even be locked in as their album of the year; that’s the kind of reaction that Casey spur on. A few years back, they were often cited among the cream of the crop when it came to melodic, sometimes-shoegaze-centred post-hardcore with its human vulnerabilities ripped wide open and paraded on display. It subsequently wasn’t to last, scuppered by their breakup in 2019, but even if a revival at the tail-end of 2022 hadn’t made enormous waves past the dedicated, it says plenty that they’d already been held aloft to be put back in position as if nothing had ever happened.

But since their last go-around, Casey have some much stiffer competition to live up to—another bunch of Welsh post-hardcore boyos with a similar penchant for emotional bloodletting on a nuclear level, by the name of Holding Absence. It’s not controversial statement to say they’ve exploded at levels that Casey had never reached, which begs the question of sustainability with these two acts being in such remarkably close quarters. To an onlooker, the underdogs in this situation seem rather apparent, and it’s certainly not the ones for whom global domination has been adorning their profile year on year. You can also add on the fact that Casey weren’t really the towering force their greatest proponents would attest them to be. They were always good—2018’s Where I Go When I Am Sleeping especially—but with hindsight, it’s also not difficult to see how their abdicated space could be swooped in on and enriched multiple times over.

It therefore wouldn’t be too outlandish to state how How To Disappear feels significantly modeled off Holding Absence’s influence. Casey’s usual angle at approaching melody is interwoven with a more pristine, focused palette, along with overt cinematic ambition and possibly their lowest proportion of screamed vocals to date. It’s a step that does indeed make sense; without the gap between releases, it wouldn’t be hard to extrapolate them into a form like this. But it’s the gap that lingers as a real fly in the ointment, or more pertinently, the scrubbed-clean patch of mid-2010s throwbackery that typically isn’t accommodated for nowadays. The reason that Holding Absence aren’t bound in such a way is because of their propensity to charge right through any attempts. Casey, meanwhile, aren’t as fortunate.

Honestly, it’s a case of bad luck and inopportune timing rather than any glaring shortcoming. For what they’re doing, you can’t really fault Casey too much, not when they’re effectively picking right back up where they left off in terms of intent. How To Disappear is all about the enormity of presence and sentiment, almost to a fault at times. Particularly on songs like I Was Happy When You Died and For Katie, where the tempos are higher and the boulder-breaking gallop seeps in as another dimension to indulge in, the weight of Casey is most palpable there. This practice of melodic zeroing-in highlights just how strong in those departments they are, particularly when they cultivate an environment for their passion to ring out. Tom Weaver’s cleaner register brings to the surface the Britrock quality of everyman earnestness which, for a band who’ve always been good at lyrical intricacies that can be both ablaze with intensity, and chilled through sweeping, empathetic expanse, definitely counts for something.

But then you run into the ever-prevalent issue of seeing how Casey have been somewhat left in the lurch. Where their sound might be song in some aspects, in others, the production reminiscent of those 2010s days is the sort of yoke that submits them to be followers instead of leaders. ‘What could’ve been’ is far from a salient argument, but had they continued as pioneers of this sound and capitalised on it effectively, the outcome could’ve been a lot different. As it stands, the soaring, cinematic approach just isn’t a powerful these days. It’s still big but not all-encompassing, or with a capability that grabs you simultaneously by the shoulders and the throat and forces you to give your undivided attention. It’s why the slow-burning moments are arguably the album’s best—they play with restraint that’s much easier for Casey to explore with indemnity. Blush is easily the strongest example, echoing in its firmament of production around the pianos and softer guitars, for one of the most outright pretty songs on the album that has its creative choices brought to bear most effectively.

And it’s not like this stuff isn’t wholly connecting is for a lack of trying; that’s emphatically not the case whatsoever. The proof is in how Casey are still massively adept at their crescendos on Selah or Those That I’m Survived By, where the effort is really funneled into embodying the drama and enormity at heart. It’s where the need for more intensity is also felt, though. Perhaps some of the firepower has been eased back too much, or they’ve been quicker than appropriate to tamp back a more visceral approach. It’s why the screams are particularly missed when they’re this cut back, often relegated to small glimpses or a quick addition for the illusion of something truly cutting.

The truth is, though, How To Disappear can seldom back that up in the long term, despite how infuriatingly close it can feel. A song like Those That I’m Survived By is the perfect example, with the layers of slide guitar and acoustics in the opening that would sound phenomenal if incorporated more, or if the colder, groaning build towards the end broke into the black-metal twinges that it so often threatens to. Sadly though, Casey’s pushes just aren’t strong enough to get there, and rather than searing magnitude at full capacity, it’s more lukewarm. And look—maybe there’s still enough here to sate those diehards, especially when there’s not a small amount that’s emblematic of the classic Casey nucleus. But with them not being the band they used to be, and the scene around them certainly in the same boat, maybe the moment has just passed. It happens, even to those who some might believe have everything and more to offer.

For fans of: Holding Absence, Touché Amoré, Fightstar

‘How To Disappear’ by Casey is released on 12th January on Hassle Records.

Words by Luke Nuttall