This is Fiddlehead’s second full-length album and although brief (ten songs in roughly twenty-five minutes) it packs a post-hardcore punch. While vocalist Pat Flynn and drummer Shawn Costa used to play in Have Heart, there’s no youth crew hardcore going on here. This is much more mature and catchier, with a nod to a ’90s DC sound or Piebald if they went back to being a hardcore band nowadays. The drumming is solid and powerful and the riffs are anthemic. But the focus of the album is Flynn’s vocals and lyrics, which stress personal empowerment and experiences related to the birth of his son and the death of his father. This is a big step forward from their debut in 2018 and shows good variation in sound while being completely accessible. Great stuff and definitely in my top three for 2021. –Kurt Morris (runforcoverrecords.com)