Artist: The Chariot
Title: Long Live
Release: November 23, 2010
Label: Good Fight Music
Listen here: Bandcamp | Spotify
If you’ve ever been to a hardcore show, then you know what controlled chaos feels like. That electric sensation of tense apprehension, the thrill of unknowing, of frantically holding lightning in a bottle, understanding that at any moment it might suddenly escape and shock you.
Like most things we undertake in public as a group of collective animals, there’s a social contract involved here as well. In any other scenario, being lifted in the air and held aloft by strangers would be viewed as a violation of norms. The same goes with the inherent danger of having random fists and feet swing and jump in your general vicinity, with little regard for your safety and well-being. The dense pressure of steaming sweaty bodies crushed together in waves of violent undulation.
And yet, all of this works without the need for police or security guards for one very important reason: catharsis. A hardcore show is nothing but pure purgation, a figurative bloodletting for the soul. It’s a collective pursuit, recognised by the commons, and desired equally by all.
The experience is a self-correcting system, shifting the bounds of what is or isn’t acceptable by those directly participating within it. It’s a pressure valve from the strong, repressed emotions we all feel, a yearning for the joy of sweet relief.
Long Live, the fourth LP from Georgian mathcore outfit The Chariot, captures the essence, immediacy, and vitality of a hardcore show. Since 2003, the band had cultivated an almost mythological reputation for insane live shows, many of which regularly featured daring leaps into the crowd, instruments played in a variety of locations (least of which the stage itself), and attendees taking over the mic for entire songs at a stretch.
Conceived in early 2010 with producer Matt Goldman (Underoath, As Cities Burn), much of the album was recorded live to tape, allowing the group—vocalist Josh Scogin, guitarist and backing vocalist Stephen Harrison, guitarist Jon Terrey, bassist Jon Kindler, and drummer David Kennedy—to harness their live-wire energy in real-time.
In April 2011, I got the rare chance to witness The Chariot’s live show for myself (see video above). On their first-ever Australian tour and opening leg of three Queensland shows, I saw the band play in two intimate and vastly different settings: a DIY warehouse show at Sun Distortion Studios, and a club night appearance at the bar X&Y.
What followed was some of the wildest shit I’ve ever seen at a show. Endless flailing limbs. Massive pile-on’s from show attendees and band members. People throwing themselves into Kennedy’s drum kit. Streamers of toilet paper and assorted detritus erupting from the pit. Harrison and others standing on amps, climbing fences and staircases, only to jump into the waiting arms of patrons. Scogin parting the crowd in two, forming a path for the band to disassemble the stage backline, piece by piece, and reassemble it in the concrete parking lot of an industrial estate outside—all of this happening mid-song.
It was crazy. It was beautiful. And it was a borderline religious experience.
On Long Live, it’s difficult to separate musicality from theology.
Throughout their career, The Chariot made no secret about their Christian background and refused to apologise for having religious messages in their lyrics. And truthfully, why should they? Hardcore is often evangelical in a variety of ways, whether it be through straight-edge crews, vegan acolytes or the tenets of Hare Krishna.
Normally, however, this type of content would be an instant turn-off for me. And yet, there was something about the band’s sincerity in action, their way of weaving their touching poetic message into the very fabric of their aural assault, that made the delivery of Long Live so vital and urgent.
This urgency is most pronounced on album standout, “The City.” The track begins as a quintessential Chariot anthem: churning guitar riffage, pounding percussion, cavernous gang vocals, serpentine leads, mathy tempo shifts, and Scogin’s interminable scream. Passages slide and crash together for close to two minutes, anchored by Scogin’s repeated declaration: “This is only a revolt.”
And then, roughly around the track’s halfway point, this instrumental agony subsides, giving way to a soaring ambient expanse of near post-rock precision. Here, Scogin delivers a fierce sermon of hope, resilience, and devotion:
“Calm rose: violent wind.
The only ‘surrender’ tonight, shall not be our own/
They cannot escape, one if by land, two if by sea.
I saved my money, but it can’t save me/
And maybe there is blood from the past, but that is not from me.
They can take away one man, and they can take away his mic/
But they cannot take us all.
No, they can’t dig a hole the right size to fit all of our dreams/
They can’t bury me, they can’t bury me.
We can’t hope that somebody else take our place/
No, we can’t hope that somebody else take our place.
May the history book read of all of our names/
Be it blood, be it ink, but at least we were free.
This is only but a fraction of what I’ve got to say/
It must be said, it must be said.
If I leave this earth tonight may it be said that I spoke my peace/
I spoke with the wrath of his grace.
Calm rose: come violent wind.
Oh, we stand hand in hand and we walk without fear.
This is a revolution.”
Hearing this in my early twenties, stuck in a shitty office job that I hated and squandering my own creativity in the mire of indecision and absence, Scogin’s sermon resonated with me in ways I didn’t think were possible for heavy music. Even now in my thirties, freelancing full-time and comfortably working for myself, I continue to save my money, despite the intimate knowledge that the ills of late capitalism won’t save me or anyone else.
What Long Live taught me then is something I still reflect on now. Have the courage of your convictions. Don’t bury your dreams. Be at peace with your choices—good and bad—and walk through life without fear, without regret. Treat every moment like a hardcore show and grip the lightning with both hands.