Gwen Stacy are another name to add to the ever-growing list of Christian metalcore bands. Their début full-length The Life I Know may be a bit over-egged with evangelism for some tastes, but there’s no denying they have a fine line in low-slung riffs.
Gwen Stacy lean more toward the hardcore end of the metalcore spectrum. Many of the songs on The Life I Know are based around thick slow-paced guitar parts delivered in a hardcore beat-down style, with fiercely detuned chugging chords providing the flesh over a framework of steady solid drumming, with the occasional harmonic pinch punctuating the groove.
The metalcore elements rise to the fore in the choruses. Here the Gwen Stacy sound opens out and gives way to epic melodic choruses with clean soaring vocal parts, a sharp contrast to the staccato bludgeon and guttural bellowing of the verses. This contrast drives The Life I Know in a way that other bands don’t always pull off; instead of feeling like two different styles bolted together randomly, the aggression and melody of Gwen Stacy’s sound complement each other well.
Quite why they named themselves after a character from the Spiderman comics isn’t clear. Gwen Stacy is a point of controversy among comic book fans for a variety of reasons, even beyond her impact in the Spiderman storylines. Her death is considered to be the end-point of the “Silver Era” of comics – never before had a superhero failed so catastrophically.
So perhaps the name is chosen to suggest that the bad are harbingers of a similar change in music? It’s plain to hear on The Life I Know that they’re one of the more “out” Christian bands, unafraid to talk about their faith through their lyrics – do they see themselves as the thin end of a new wedge?
I guess only the band know for certain, and it’s not hugely important either. I have no beef with Christian bands talking about their religion in their lyrics – music is a vehicle for communicating ideas, after all. But evangelism doesn’t endear me to any artform and I know that there will be other metal fans who will be even more averse than I, so it feels only fair to fans and band alike to make it plain.
Lyrics left aside, though, there’s little fault I can call on Gwen Stacy. The Life I Know may not be the most original album at a notes-and-riffs level, but the delivery and groove of those riffs is admirable stuff, and it’s a musically strong début that any young band would be proud of.
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