American alternative rock band, Too Close To Touch are back with their second full-length record, ‘Haven’t Been Myself’. It’s only been 18 months since the band dropped their debut (2015’s ‘Nerve Endings’) but the quintet seem keen to keep up the momentum they have been building.

First things first, this band has one hell of a vocalist in Keaton Pierce. The album starts with ‘Sympathy’ which showcases pretty much everything he can do in just over three minutes. With a gentle opening, a huge chorus and some pretty guttural screams, this guy is the bands main attraction.

Musically, Too Close To Touch sit somewhere between Issues and Of Mice And Men and are clearly aiming for the Warped Tour crowd, but that’s not to say there isn’t any depth to it. While the majority of the music found here is nothing new, the passionate vocals and the overall dark tone throughout are where it shines.

Lyrically, the album revolves around the loss of Keaton’s young sister and it’s apparent that the writing of it was a very cathartic experience for him. On ‘Translate’ he sings – “I wanna find a way to replace the things I’ve lost. They left so suddenly, I couldn’t pick the pieces up” with a fragility that’s hard to fake.

The album closes with it’s strongest track in the form of ‘Eiley’. By far the most aggressive and emotive song on offer, and with nods to bands like Underoath and Letlive, hopefully it is a direction the band don’t lose sight of in the future.

Too Close To Touch don’t bring much to the table in terms of originality but excel when they dive into the heavier side of things. If you are looking for something that’s instantly accessible and catchy that occasionally hits quite hard then you can do a lot worse than this album.

3/5

‘Haven’t Been Myself’ by Too Close To Touch is out now on Epitaph Records.

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Words by Shane Sanderson (@shanoscapanos)