Shoreline

In the organizer's words:

Album Release Tour (+ Special Guests)

If you're down, hopefully you'll get up again at some point. But where exactly does the point begin where things get better? Is it that clear? Do you still have the worst ahead of you - or are you already on the road to recovery? SHORELINE also ask themselves this question and dedicate an entire album to it: Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After? Their new songs undoubtedly push the band from Münster to their current creative peak: emo and hardcore meet a newfound passion for alternative rock of international caliber, smart songwriting and lyrics that go where it hurts.

SHORELINE follow their guiding question: with the intro double Worry Count and Brittle Bond, the record starts thoughtfully and melancholically. "I got my mistakes. Just like you I can't stop thinking about them all", Hansol Seung sings at first in an exhausted voice over echoing emo guitars, then gains strength together with the band, repeats the sentence with much more energy - and suddenly the whole thing sounds less like a concession and more like a determined declaration of war. The start of a record that gets progressively heavier, in which a unique kind of post-hardcore breaks through, which SHORELINE continue to refine until the album finally ends on a hopeful note with Phantom Pain.

"For me, there is a clear turning point on the album - the low point, if you like - from which the songs become more hopeful again," says Seung. "When I showed the songs to close friends, however, each of them identified this point for themselves at a different point. I think it's totally funny but also just beautiful." Is it the admission in the dramatic Forgive, which the band shares with Joe Taylor from Knuckle Puck, in which it says: "I can only pray for your forgiveness 'cause I was wrong and you were right"? Or the final part of the venomous Paradox Man, in which the band follow in the footsteps of TOUCHÉ AMORÉ in knee-deep, crushing hardcore? The beauty of art and an artistic concept album like this one is that you can find your own answers if you listen carefully. Either way, SHORELINE find more conciliatory tones from the second half of the album onwards - and write such an outrageously catchy chorus with Out Of Touch that many other bands would walk over dead bodies for it. In times when you can't exactly draw courage or consolation from the current world situation and instead want to sink down powerlessly, an album like this is both a glimmer of hope and a declaration of war: things will get better again, even if it doesn't feel like it at all at the low point.

Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After? shows a band that is aware of its genre roots in the newer emo wave around ONE STEP CLOSER, ARM'S LENGTH or KOYO and has long been a fundamental part of it itself. Hansol Seung, Julius Hecht, Christoph Overhoff and Martin Reckfort recorded their new album themselves in their own rehearsal room, which they converted into a studio, and co-produced it remotely [FT1] with Chris Teti (FIDDLEHEAD, THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE AND I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE, among others). Teti and Greg Thomas then took care of the mix at Silverbullet Studios in Burlington, Connecticut. Kris Crummett is responsible for the mastering. SHORELINE write big hooks and melodies on their new album, but still from the perspective of a DIY punk band instead of leaning towards stadium rock.

At the same time, the stages they play are getting bigger and bigger. Having started out on the floors of self-managed rooms, SHORELINE have played pretty much every squad that has provided them with a power socket in Europe over the past ten years. Since then, they have played shows with scene legends such as BOYSETSFIRE, HOT WATER MUSIC and SILVERSTEIN. Next February, they will be touring the UK with ARM'S LENGTH - and they recently played a sold-out hometown show at the Sputnikhalle in Münster in front of around 600 people, their biggest headlining concert to date.

SHORELINE was founded in 2015 out of a desire to be an active part of the scene back home in Münster. The first demo songs on YouTube and plenty of DIY diligence soon put the band on the road. With the EP You Used To Be A Safe Place (Uncle M Music, 2018) and their debut album Eat My Soul (Uncle M Music, 2019), they quickly grew beyond the status of an insider tip. The follow-up Growth (End Hits Records, 2022) develops the band's political side even further after the pandemic years, including songs about animal rights (Meat Free Youth) and anti-Asian racism (Konichiwa).

With their third album To Figure Out at the latest, SHORELINE gained attention beyond the borders of Europe when they became the first German band to release on the American scene label Pure Noise Records. Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After? will also be released there in March. "Honestly," says Seung. "I've always dreamed of playing in a band like SHORELINE.

written by Frederik Tebbe