Stage Four
Stage Four is built around a painful absence. Jeremy Bolm writes about the death of his mother, working through grief, guilt and memories that refuse to settle into a simple story. Touché Amoré give those words a wider musical setting than their earlier short bursts of hardcore. The result is direct, personal and carefully shaped, without losing the band's urgency.
Flowers and You opens with the right balance of melody and force. The guitars have a brightness that sits against Bolm's harsh delivery, making the sadness more striking rather than softening it. His voice remains the centre of the song, but the band give it enough movement and colour to avoid turning the music into a plain backdrop.
That extra room matters across the album. Rapture and Benediction allow their ideas more time to develop, while the shorter Displacement brings the anger into sharper focus. Bolm's writing stays close to particular moments and unresolved questions. There is little distance between the subject and the way he delivers it, giving the record a consistent emotional weight.
Water Damage makes especially good use of a quieter opening. The shimmering instrumental sound creates space around the vocal before the arrangement becomes fuller. It shows how the band can build intensity through control and contrast. The song does not need to rush towards its strongest feeling because the quieter details already carry so much of it.
The cleaner singing on Benediction is less assured than Bolm's usual delivery. That exposed quality suits the subject, though the melody does not always sound fully comfortable. More generally, this is a demanding album to take in at once. Its narrow emotional focus gives it strength, but it also leaves relatively little room for relief.
Skyscraper provides a thoughtful ending. Julien Baker's additional voice brings a different character into the song, and the final recorded message makes the loss feel immediate again. The closing stretch gives the album a clear destination without pretending that everything has been resolved. Stage Four succeeds because the band support such difficult material with strong melodies, purposeful changes in intensity and a sense of care in the arrangements. Its honesty is matched by the quality of the songs.
