Sufferer is truly an act of defiance. The project was started by Hail the Sun guitarist Shane Gann back in 2015 as a musical representation of a daily struggle with anxiety and depression and the process has been anything but plain sailing. With the help of Corey Lockwood of A Lot Like Birds, Blake Dahlinger of I The Mighty and Forrest Wright, the band have overcome a barrage of personal issues and obstacles to finally unveil their self-titled debut album.

Given the torment it’s taken to get to this stage, the band couldn’t be more appropriately named and the suffering is very apparent in ‘Chapter III’. It’s an absolute joy to hear Lockwood’s impassioned, harsh vocals hammering home the message of the track; his clean vocal progression on A Lot Like Birds’ ‘DIVISI’ is impressive, but the tone of his screams against faster tempo, angst-driven songs is a sound like no other. This is pain-fuelled post-hardcore and it hits hard. Hopefully, this is the beginning of more to come from Sufferer.