Eat Your Heart Out – Florescence (Review)

By any measurement, it’s been a busy couple of years for Newcastle’s Eat Your Heart Out. Following the release of 2017’s Mind Games the five-piece have toured extensively, including an American tour and a spot at the first ever Download Festival in Australia and somehow managed to find the time to record their debut album Florescence.

Arriving to eardrums on May 17, the agonising wait for new music from Eat Your Heart Out has thankfully ended. Florescence presents the band with their biggest challenge yet, and with the undeniable weight of expectation across the world the question remains: Have they passed their most important test so far with flying colours?

Even though I’d love to tease an answer, it delights me to say that albeit unsurprisingly, the Novocastrians have offered up a delectable serving of absolute belters. From its very outset you can hear that Florescence is the most focused effort from the band yet. While there doesn’t seem to be any real deviation from the path the band have trodden in the past, it feels like an immense extension and improvement on what they’ve already done.

While Florescence is undeniably quite a linear album, I don’t believe it’s important for every single band to attempt to redefine the wheel and break new ground. The band have ultimately stuck true to their own formula, played to their strengths and delivered a version of themselves that is better than it has ever been.

And if you prefer an album that is more diverse sonically, fear not! While there’s a consistent vibe and sound to the album, I can guarantee that the strength of the songs alone will be enough to keep you interested. “Closer To The Sun” is up there as one of the coolest songs I’ve ever heard, and “Heavy With Envy” is a furious mix of everything that makes Eat Your Heart Out one of Australia’s best exports.

While fixated on nailing that signature sound that has shot the band to popularity in recent years, if you have a taste for that typical Eat Your Heart Out flavour then Florescence is the album for you. More than ever, the songs feel extremely vulnerable at times and conversely, the album has darker moments of anger and frustration, a side to the band that I feel we’ve never really seen before. If nothing else, the motivations and inspirations behind the Eat Your Heart Out feel more diverse than ever.

I often believe that where some bands fall short is by failing to identify their own strengths, thus creating something that doesn’t truly reflect them. This is not the case at all with Florescence, with the Newcastle punks sacrificing experimentation for the sake of creating an album wholly focused on exposing the best version of Eat Your Heart Out possible.

Like a flower going into bloom, this album represents Eat Your Heart Out’s own florescence. It’s a coming of age for a band that have always threatened to deliver, a maturation that has been just around the corner for some time. Florescence is a refreshingly unique album, and a fantastic blend of punk, grunge, emo and pop with songs that will no doubt be stuck in your head the moment you hear them. If you’re still sleeping on Eat Your Heart Out, it’s time to wake up.