Album Review: Love Rarely - 'Pain Travels'
Love Rarely fuses math rock and hardcore together in a brazenly fearless new debut that establishes them as an instant new favourite.
Already elevated to supporting The Callous Daoboys with Knives on the most recent leg of their tour and an early afternoon slot at 2,000 Trees in the summer, it won’t be long before Love Rarely find their way into the evening and to the headline – joining the new wave of pop punk bands like Greywind that are daring to experiment and try something new! Pain Travels is a picture-painter, a hit maker – it tells the story of who Love Rarely are, where they’ve come from, exploring past family trauma and unpacking it showing that they can continue through the darkness. But after all Pain Travels – and that’s where the title comes from; navigating adulthood with scars that shape you but no longer define you. It’s a weighty tome – and Dan Dewsnap; guitarist, comforts the audience with a statement piece: “we’re basically saying – things have been tough, but they’re going to be okay.”
It’s a DIY record, entirely self-produced by guitarist Lev Taylor – and sums up their grit and determination as a band that have already won a tastemaking headline slot at the Grace in London on May 6. Courtney Levitt’s vocals are fierce and uncompromising – generational pain is the theme of the early tracks here Through Families, Haunted and Severed, with Severed being deployed early in the album: “I go home and that’s where you wait for me,” Levitt cries; saying that home is not the place of safety, of safe comfort that it should be for those and the struggles that are faced outside of the room continue inside: “I will remember your face forever,” the scars are very much real and they linger. It’s a brutal track – the vocals are pulsating and the guitars kick in with tinges of math rock that threaten to drift into King Gizzard or Angine de Poitrine territory at times, yet this is firmly rooted in emo origins with its lyrics that run through the album. The searing incident of “I will remember your face forever” that is repeated through Severed is a war cry: about the emotions you go through when you have to cut out a hostile family member and an alcoholic. It’s entirely personal, and the relief of letting them go is born with a dash of guilt: you know, you’re telling yourself that you could help them change, but it’s the acceptance of learning that not everyone can and the positives of who they are beneath it all keep drawing you back.
I’ll Try continues that path towards self-acceptance “I’ll try / I got this / you’ll see” Levitt calls, a simple, yet incredibly harrowing war cry: “I WILL PROVE YOU WRONG,” and it’s very much about finding self-worth in the aftermath of the events of Severed and healing and overcoming that. It’s a deeply impactful record that echoes Canadian hardcore outfit Piss and their tackling of similar subjects with heavy weight – echoed again in Haunted, it’s all about the weight of inherited trauma that pulls up the family tree with “roots… soaked in alcohol.” “I can’t change you; but I tried” sums up the thematic relevance of this record – searingly powerful! It will draw the right audience to tears, filled with dark, atmospheric textures and thought-provoking lyrics that encourage you to introspectively look at yourself and who you are as a person as much as you are aware of who you keep in your circle and around you. There’s a lot of source material here – razor-sharp instrumental, a focus point in its post-punk revival influences.
This is a band with accomplished grit and practice – they’ve already got a show at Arctangent 2025 under their belt; same as Callous Daoboys, and it’s instantly easy to see how the two would’ve ended up paired with Knives for this most recent tour. Immediately the singles Disappear, Severed, Mould and Will let you know what you’re in for: how to let go and experience primal emotion that rivals at times, La Dispute or Touche Amore as much as Piss. The hardcore hooks give a storytelling motif to it that can have you recalling No One Was Driving the Car; La Dispute’s critically acclaimed record of 2025 – that was best listened to in one sitting and so too was this! With Disappear it’s all about Levitt letting her emotions lose – there are touches of a rawer, angrier RØRY at times here (especially on I’ll Try) – tackling such vital themes of self-preservation and self-worth in the need of overwhelming personal matters: “You said I should disappear,” the anger at being made to feel like shit, and being made to feel like shit by someone you care about, is of so vital to have a healthy outlet and through Love Rarely it feels like that outlet is through song and through the mosh pits and carnage that will follow: this is a band on the brink of something much bigger than where they are now.
Blame is haunted, Mould envelops, and as a result the album feels like a kind of “comfort blanket” as much for Love Rarely as the audience themselves, a record of catharsis and understanding that wears its heart on its sleeve. Few albums from debut acts feel this well realised and well formed in tackling a clear and personal vision like this: being left to your own devices as a child, being hyper independent as a child, the alcohol abuse wearing thin – it’s all laid bare here, no amount of emotion is safe; but that’s part of the process – it’s a delight to unpack a record that’s best listened to in full, and can be challenging but rewarding in the best possible way. If Angine de Poitrine had a hardcore screamo frontperson; Love Rarely would be that band.
Words by Miles Milton-Jefferies
