State Faults (formerly known as Brother Bear) are an American

post-hardcore Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. It was initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. Like post-punk, the term has been ...

band formed in

Santa Rosa, California Santa Rosa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Rose of Lima, Saint Rose") is a city and the county seat of Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area ...

in 2010.

Noisey ''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, the founders later launched the youth media company Vice Media, ...

included their album "Resonate/Desperate" as one of the records that best captures the last decade of

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk ...

. In 2019, they were listed at number 16 on

Kerrang ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one-off ...

's ''50 Best American Hardcore Bands Right Now'' list.

History

The band formed in 2010, under the name ''Brother Bear'', releasing their debut EP, ''Head In the Clouds'' the next year. However changed their name soon after due to the large number of bands who were also operating under that name. On 8 May 2012, they released their debut album ''Desolate Peaks'' through Tiny Engine Records. On 12 November 2013, they released their sophomore album ''Resonate/Desperate'' through No Sleep Records. In 2015, Kelley departed from the band, at the same time as Chris Hansen from No Sleep Records was pushing the band to put out a new record. This led to the three remaining members deciding to officially break-up and work on a separate musical project, which would turn out to be

noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise music, noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimal music, minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, a ...

band Slow Bloom. In 2019, Andrew, Weldon and Wallace reformed State Faults, due to increased interest by fans and began recording material. Their first performance after reforming was at Santa Rosa's ''Chop Shop'' on 18 February, with support from Outlier, Sloth & Turtle and Pushing It. Their third album ''Clairvoyant'' was released on 21 June 2019. In December 2019, Brooklyn Vegan placed ''Resonate/Desperate'' at number 95 on their top 100 punk rock and

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

albums of the 2010s. In addition to this, Chris Luedtke of Metal Injection included the album as an "Honourable Mention" in his list of the greatest albums of 2019.

Musical style

State Faults have primarily been categorised as

screamo Screamo (also referred to as skramz) is an aggressive subgenre of emo that emerged in the early 1990s and emphasizes "willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics".Jason Heller, "Feast of Reason". ''Denver Westword'', June 20, 2002Access date: ...

and

possessing elements of

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with t ...

post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...

shoegazing Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with "dream pop") is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volu ...

, heavy metal,

mathcore Mathcore is a subgenre of hardcore punk and metalcore influenced by post-hardcore, extreme metal and math rock that developed during the 1990s. Bands in the genre emphasize complex and fluctuant rhythms through the use of irregular time signatur ...

and

heavy psych ''Heavy Psych'' is the fifth studio album by stoner rock band Nebula. It was released in 2009 via Tee Pee Records. Promo copies were released to coincide with a tour that began on August 12, 2008. The album was reissued in 2022 by the band's c ...

. Their music often makes heavy usage of dynamics, by incorporating both ambient and cacophonous passages. Their softer sections are often utilized through the usage of reverb effects, ambient synths and occasionally spoken word. Dan Ozzi, a writer at

, described their music as "what a panic attack sounds like". Some tracks, such as "Wildfires", incorporate melody and hooks into

unclean vocals A death growl, or simply growl, is an extended vocal technique usually employed in extreme styles of music, particularly in death metal and other extreme subgenres of heavy metal music. Death growl vocals are sometimes criticized for their ...

. Lyrically, their music generally focuses on

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

, makes use of references to the

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

and is heavily emotional. A number of the tracks on their debut album were based on

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...

and its repercussions. In an article for No Echo, Adam Yoe described their lyrics as "meditation on trauma and healing".

Members

;Current *Jonny Andrew – lead vocals, guitar (2010–2015, 2019–present) *Jef Overn – bass (2020–present), vocals (2020–present) *Jared Wallace – drums (2012–2015, 2019–present), guitar (2010-2012) ;Former *Chip Kelley – bass, vocals (2010–2015) *Toby Brown – drums (2010–2012) *Michael Weldon – bass (2019–2020), vocals (2010–2015, 2019–2020), guitar (2010–2015)

Discography

;Studio albums *''Desolate Peaks'' (2012) *''Resonate/Desperate'' (2013) *''Clairvoyant'' (2019) ;EPs *''Head In The Clouds'' (2011) *''Moon Sign Gemini'' (2020) ;Singles *''Vespers'' (2010) *''Arrowhead'' (2010) *''Ugly'' (2012)

References

{{reflist, 30em Musical quintets American post-hardcore musical groups American screamo musical groups Musicians from Santa Rosa, California Musical trios No Sleep Records artists Tiny Engines artists