Porcelain

“Everything has changed,” sings frontman Steve Pike on “Apocalypse”, a track from Austin post-hardcore band Porcelain’s sophomore LP, Today’s Minor Victories; “Not for better but for worse.” It’s a sentiment that reflects a familiar millennial experience: comparing the world you dreamed of growing into with the constant indignities of late capitalism, the interminable imperialist violence around the globe, and the rapidly escalating climate crisis as we barrel past the point of no return. And on a micro scale, it reflects a stage of life marked by great tectonic shifts, by youthful innocence fully giving way to grief and disillusionment. On Today’s Minor Victories, apocalypse is both personally and literally the backdrop, and Porcelain’s churning, roiling, snarling post-hardcore is the tool of choice with which to hack through the weeds.