Four years ago, the grand and clangorous Los Angeles post-hardcore band Touché Amoré released their devastating, monumental album Stage Four. Bandleader Jeremy Bolm sang, screamed, and sobbed about watching his mother die of cancer. It was a crowning achievement for a band who’d already made a lot of powerful music.

In the time since, there have been a couple of one-off Touché Amoré singles: “Green” in 2018, “Deflector” last year. The members of the band have also made noisier hardcore records with other bands: Bolm with Hesitation Wounds, guitarist Clayton Stevens with Entry. And now, Touché Amoré are returning at full strength, unveiling the details of the new album that they’ve been teasing for a while.

Touché Amoré recorded the new album Lament with a producer whose name tends to start fights: Ross Robinson, infamous architect of the nü-metal sound. Robinson is most famous for working with Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot, but he’s also produced post-hardcore classics like At The Drive-In’s Relationship Of Command and the Blood Brothers’ …Burn, Piano Island, Burn. Last year, Touché Amoré recorded “Deflector” with Robinson, testing out the process to see if it would work. It did, and they went and made a whole album with him. (“Deflector” is on the album.)

Lead single “Limelight,” which is not a Rush cover, suggests that Touché Amoré made the right call. “Limelight” sounds tremendous, strained and furious and colossal. Bolm rages about getting older and embracing it, while Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull comes in to sing add gorgeous melodic vocals to the bridge. It’s a stirring and resonant piece of music. Check out “Limelight” and the Lament tracklist below.

In a press release, Bolm says this about “Limelight”:

When you’re connected to someone long enough, and you’ve both suffered losses and been there for one another, there’s an understanding and a beauty to the quiet moments. There’s a great line in Pulp Fiction when Uma Thurman boasts knowing when you’ve found someone really special, when you can just “shut the fuck up for a minute, and comfortably share silence.” I imagined that you’d be shamed for casually omitting that a day or two may go by without realizing you haven’t kissed your partner, but at no point did things feel bad. You’re just in it and it feels like home.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Come Heroine”
02 “Lament”
03 “Feign”
04 “Reminders”
05 “Limelight”
06 “Exit Row”
07 “Savoring”
08 “A Broadcast”
09 “I’ll Be Your Host”
10 “Deflector”
11 “A Forecast”

Lament is out 10/9 on Epitaph. Pre-order it here.