It was a sad day back in 2018 when Welsh post-hardcore legends Casey decided to call it a day. As one of Britain’s most beloved bands, it seemed as if the music scene would be an infinitely darker place. However, the sun is shining again because almost exactly five years to the day when Casey called time, they made a triumphant return with a surprise 7” single. Well, their return looks permanent and to solidify their reappearance the band unleash their third full-length, the majestic How To Disappear.
First formed in 2014, Casey are the type of band who have a special relationship with their fans, and on hearing opening track ‘Unique Lights’ it’s perfectly understandable. Casey have lost none of the intimate charm, and the tone employed here seems to reach deep into the listeners psyche and resonates on some primordial level. It is something impalpable, but no less real, and it feels like a lot of effort has been expended on choosing just the right notes and harmonic lines, and the result is a sound that ties the listener up in all sorts of emotional knots. A similar thing applies to Tom Weaver’s vocals which wisp around our eardrums like a friendly spirit and have the same kind of haunting quality.
In our age of quarrel where people are polarised and division reigns, there’s a softer aesthetic surrounding Casey that seems at odds with the times, but makes the perfect counterweight nonetheless. Theirs is a quieter type of storm, yet it’s no less powerful for that. There’s a defiance to be found on ‘For Katie’, and indeed much of this album, a door that’s holding back all sorts of raw emotion is kept in place by a brave protagonist. It threatens to buckle and break, and is symptomatic of the struggles we all face, and it is from this that the band build up a strong rapport with the listener.
How To Disappear is an album that leans heavy on emotion. Therefore, it is not the type of album you can play as background music, rather it becomes a thing you engage with and such is the power of the ethereal instrumental ‘St Peter’ and the stormy ‘Puncture Wounds To Heaven’ that you might feel a little drained as the album wends towards its conclusion (but in the best way, of course). It seems that the idea of a full album is coming back into vogue (rather than just being a collection of singles), and this record does ebb and flow in such a manner, tethering us to the ground on the penultimate ‘Blush’ before cutting the cord and allowing us to float free on the title-track.
This is an album that marks a triumphant return for Casey, so much so that you feel a more appropriate title for this record would be How To Reappear.
- How To Disappear is released via Hassle Records on 12th January 2024 (from here).
Track List:
- Unique Lights
- I Was Happy When You Died
- Sanctimonious
- For Katie
- Selah
- Bite Through My Tongue
- Those That I’m Survived By
- St Peter
- Puncture Wounds To Heaven
- Space Between
- Blush
- How To Disappear
