Track Premiere: World Be Free – “Acceptance”

While COVID-19 and its ripple effects have arguably stifled the creative juices for legions of musicians, that is truly not so for legendary drummer and NYHC institution Sam Siegler. In fact in 2020, he’s been on a bit of a roll with new releases. Last week saw the announcement of Forgive/Forget, a long lost project with Brian McTernan (producer, Battery) and Josh English (Six Going on Seven) that was recorded in ’98 and was shelved until now. In July, Constant Elevation (yes, a reference to horrorcore gods Gravediggaz) welcomed their second EP in Freedom Beach now with permanent members Mike Ireland (Pass Away, ex–I Am the Avalanche), Jonis Jzubkovs (Caspian, ex–Sainthood Reps) and Jim Carroll (Suicide File, The Hope Conspiracy). And with no signs of stopping, Sam Siegler is now back with World Be Free, welcoming the new 12-inch EP One Time for Unity on November 13 via Revelation Records (preorder it).

World Be Free first came together in 2014, uniting some serious titans in the hardcore world between Siegler and Scott Vogel (Terror, Buried Alive), Andrew Kline (Strife), Arthur Smilios (Gorilla Biscuits, CIV, Warzone) and Joe Garlipp (Envy). After a limited cassette release, the band released their debut LP The Anti-Circle in 2016, a fun excursion that saw the band expanding into more melodic punk influences while keeping their collective hardcore cred intact. A handful of appearances followed but life got in the way– Vogel required neck surgery, Garlipp’s day job as the Who’s tour manager got heavy and the rest of the band hunkered down with other projects. It seemed, however briefly, that World Be Free might be on the back burner.

After replacing Smilios with bassist Alex Barreto (Chain of Strength, Excel), mostly due to him being the lone East Coast-dwelling member, World Be Free settled in to work on new material. The crew passed ideas back and back and forth but nothing seemed to stick– until Vogel heard the EP opener “Acceptance,” which makes its debut here today. “Up to the point this song was written, I would say the band was in limbo,” recalls Vogel on the state of World Be Free at the time. “My surgery really messed up the momentum or growth of the band on the first release, and when I was back on my feet, we never really got that ball rolling again.”

“Acceptance” kicks off with a decidedly post-hardcore feel straight out of the Quicksand playbook before settling into a galloping hardcore track with a jaw-clenching breakdown that will feel more familiar to no nonsense fans of the genre. And while the “Acceptance” is decidedly hardcore in feel and approach, it does teeter into territory occupied by bands like Dag Nasty and Lifetime by prioritizing melodic tendencies over out and out destruction. Even Vogel sounds far removed from the bark found on Death of Your Perfect World and One With The Underdogs, but that’s not to say that the track is anything less than a steamroller. Check it out for the first time here.

“Acceptance” is culled from the self-produced One Time for Unity 12-inch EP, five new songs tracked with Davey Warsop and Nick Jett. Order yours at Revelation Records ahead of it’s release.