Deathcrash Announce "Less+" ahead of UK/EU/Japan Tour, Share "Hits / Tens"

• “An album that marks a clear progression from their debut; it's still got some post-rock and slowcore influence, but this is overall a louder, heavier, and more immediate album that leans into the band's emo and post-hardcore influences, with bigger choruses and more screaming than Deathcrash's debut.”- Brooklyn Vegan
• “Devastating slowcore...Traces of Elliot Smith and Slint can be found around the contours” - The FADER
• “A spectacular work of wrath and restraint.” - Loud & Quiet

“A compelling staring contest within the band, operating at a far greater intensity while only barely raising the volume... Less is haunted by an uncanny vision of ghostly beings, the drowsy optimism of very early morning, or the muted reflection of a night that hasn’t ended yet.” - Pitchfork

“It isn’t often that words aren’t able to capture the beauty of a piece of music. Stripped back and painfully honest, London slowcore band deathcrash comes dangerously close.” - So Young Magazine

After releasing sophomore effort ‘Less’ earlier this year, deathcrash return to announce an expanded version of the album w/previously unreleased bonus material, remixes and various reworks. Alongside the announcement the band share ghostly instrumental b-sides “Hits” & “Tens” available digitally for the first time. Beginning September 7th, they support Codeine in Europe before touring select dates of the UK & Japan.

The band elaborates on Less:

"During the process of making ‘Less’ we slowly took apart the boundaries that we had originally outlined as essential for the record. It expanded outwards past the pure slow release we intended to make, and touched other aspects of music we were enjoying at the time. Nevertheless, what remained from the Less manifesto was the title and the desire to release the antithesis of Return.

Two further tracks had initially been planned for the album, one of which was recorded in Scotland, and the other in London. During the many hours we had to sit and talk while recording, a decision was made for ‘Hits’ and ‘Tens’ to not be included on Less. They were instead pressed as b-sides for those that bought the ‘Empty Heavy’ 12’’. These tracks are in the manner of our previous ‘Home Demos’ and ‘songs for m i-iv’, and contain what is left of Less from those early writing sessions in March 2022.

It is with a joy in irony that we can now release them as part of an extended, deluxe version of the record that will be called ‘Less’.

Accompanying these songs will be a series of remixes from other artists we admire, who have lovingly reimagined deathcrash into new forms we have yet to discover ourselves."

LISTEN HERE

Tour Dates

• 07.09 – Paris, Maroquinerie*
• 08.09 – Brussels, Botanique*
• 14.09 – Leeds, Mill Hill Chapel
• 15.09 – Glasgow, CCA
• 16.09 – Manchester, White Hotel
• 17.09 – Bristol, The Cube
• 19.09 – Rotterdam, V11.
• 20.09 – Hamburg, Reeperbahn.
• 22.09 – Limerick, Dolans
• 23.09 – Dublin, Workman’s Cellar
• 28.09 – London, Fabric
• 12.04 - Tokyo Shindaita, Japan - Fever
• 12.05 - Nagoya, Japan - k.d. japon
• 12.06 - Osaka, Japan - Conpass

*supporting Codeine

Given their debut album was made in disparate conditions, spread out over a year via multiple recordings, the band knew that they wanted to make something “more complete and cohesive” as a group. Time spent on the road had solidified them as a four-piece and given them greater confidence about their own capabilities. While Return loudly and proudly paid homage to its influences, Less is more about the band growing into themselves and eschewing easy categorisation and labelling.

The result is a record that is as powerful and potent as it is tender and introspective, with arrangements that manage to feel refined yet detailed and with a deep emotional resonance at the core of the record. Banks’ voice shifts from hushed whispers to guttural screams, one minute tapping into the kind of fragile beauty that artists like Elliott Smith managed so well, on tracks such as ‘Duffy’s’ before unleashing a doom metal growl in thundering unison with the band on ‘Empty Heavy’.

In the same versatile fashion, the band glides from delicate and skeletal arrangements that emphasise reflective pauses and pondering silences, to moments of fierce and punchy dynamism. “It was raw,” says Weinberger of the experience. “Because the sound is cleaner, clearer and exposed, there's a vulnerability there because we just put it all out there on the record.”