It feels like Southern California’s Initiate have been one of the most promising bands on the hardcore landscape for years and years. Today, Initiate make good on all that promise. After their 2018 LP Before Long… and their great 2020 EP Lavender, Initiate have come out with their new album Cerebral Circus, and it’s just insanely good. I am going to be banging this thing for a long time.

Initiate can play extremely fast and hard whenever they want, and frontwoman Crystal Pak has one of the most electrifying screams out there. On this album, though, Initiate combine that ferocity with a sense of soaring melody. There are acoustic guitars on this record. There are choruses that sound like they came from an arena-sized pop-punk band. Initiate’s whole style is nothing like Turnstile’s humungous life-affirming bounce. These tracks are angry and emotionally wracked, but they’re also warm and accessible on some fundamental level. I have no idea how Initiate pulled that balance off, but they really, really did it.

Initiate recorded Cerebral Circus with Touché Amoré collaborator Zach Tuch, and we’ve already posted the early track “The Surface.” The whole record will only take about 22 minutes of your time, and it demands to be heard. Hear it below.

Cerebral Circus is out 4/14 on Triple B Records.