Love•Love•Love – First Love EP

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · November 13, 2024

Love•Love•Love are a sludgey, post hardcore/ noise rock band from Lübeck, Germany. They just released their debut EP called First Love on November 1st, 2024. The self released four song album is sixteen minutes long of relentless brutality mixed with interesting audio aggression. The band consists of Max on guitar and vocals, Manuel on guitars, Florian on drums, and Maik on bass.

“Pigtoast” blasts out of the gate with a reckless abandon speed of grinding punk. After the hardcore speed race, the song shifts into a heavy noise rocking beat down. The riff then transforms into a clean guitar driven rhythm. The song leaps from soft dynamics into heavy sludge utilizing both clean vocals and abrasive shouting. The angular riffs keeps the song interesting and moving along with intensity. “Pe_is” starts with the drums and kicks into a flowing hardcore rhythm. The song is more straightforward than the first and stay within the noise realm of hardcore aggression. The third track entitled “Green Gravel” features some discordant accents that drive the music back into a more noise rock territory. The song cranks into a blistering rhythm and delivers some almost progressive nuances with guitar feedback pauses too. At one section of the song, the music breaks into clean guitar and then unloads a speedy punk riff as one guitarist remains still playing the clean rhythm. Love•Love•Love do a great job incorporating interesting musical tweaks into their songs. They break the mold from one extreme music genre to the next, and keeps the listener on their toes, especially in both “Pigtoast” and “Green Gravel”.

The fourth and final song is called “Geh und friss”. Like the second track “Pe_is”, it resides in the sludge rock and hardcore region of sounds. It starts off with distorted bass and then erupts into a heavy garage rock type of rhythm that flows into a hardcore riff. Like the other three songs, “Geh und friss” doesn’t stagnate long in one section. The music is varied in an instant and the shouty vocals fit the tone of the song quite nicely. The end sequence is a shout out of backing vocals repeating a series of lyrics in the band’s native language, I presume. It’s done with an old school hardcore chant, for a suitable ending to the song’s aggression.

Overall, First Love is a heavy slab of intense music that really makes the most out of it’s brief sixteen minutes of audio. The sound quality of this EP is great and allows the band to shine (and grind). Love•Love•Love captures the essence of post hardcore and punk and dishes out an interesting and eclectic blend of noise rock. It will be exciting to hear what the band will do next.