Fifteen years after forming as teenagers, Against The Current are still finding new ways to challenge themselves, as the American rock trio have released their long-awaited third studio album, a record that explores love, loss, fate and the sometimes painful process of becoming somebody different.
Led by vocalist Chrissy Costanza, guitarist Dan Gow and drummer Will Ferri, the band have moved well beyond their early pop-punk beginnings, embracing a more expansive alternative rock sound without abandoning the huge melodies and emotional songwriting that helped build their audience; the album brings together the band’s heavier instincts and more vulnerable moments. That relationship between destruction and transformation runs throughout Till Death & Back, as the band approach it from several different emotional perspectives.
Within the context of the full album, all of these different experiences across the songs begin to connect, revealing how the people we love, lose and struggle to understand can continue shaping us long after the circumstances themselves have changed. However, the thread connecting everything is fate, particularly the belief that certain people and experiences remain part of our lives regardless of how much time passes.
“Fate is the thread running through every song on this album, the belief that what’s meant for you is bound to you across time,” Chrissy says. “The cost is the fire, the fight, the version of yourself you don’t get back. Till Death & Back is the promise that no matter how far you go, the thread never breaks, not even in death.’
It’s an interesting perspective for a band celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, especially one that has spent much of its career evolving rather than trying to recreate the music that first brought it attention. The band’s album doesn’t appear particularly interested in pretending that growth is easy or that every difficult experience eventually makes sense, as Against The Current acknowledge the uncertainty, heartbreak and determination involved in getting through it all.
