Album review: Casey – How To Disappear

It’s hard to believe that only a decade has passed since Casey first swept onto our radars. Between 2014 and 2019, the South Welsh quintet built a fast reputation for the kind of frank, emotionally-agile post-hardcore that’s often seen as the reserve of American giants like Touché Amoré and La Dispute. Their 2016 debut Love Is Not Enough wrapped white knuckles around broken hearts with its captivating immediacy, before 2018’s Where I Go When I Am Sleeping confirmed them as one of the most talented British bands of their generation. Then, on December 1 of the same year, they announced they were no longer emotionally invested and would be calling it a day.

As low as the fires may have burned, the spark was never quite extinguished. A return has been building since December 1, 2022. Comeback singles Great Grief and Atone (neither of which are featured here) bluntly unpacked feelings of loss and the urgent desire for reconciliation following that original run having been cut short. How To Disappear feels like the final step towards picking up where they left off: a broader, more subtly melancholic reflection on time passed and a deliberate course-correction into the deep expanses of post-rock and shoegaze.

They still rage at times, of course, and streaks of screamo indignance burn through Sanctimonious and Bite Through My Tongue. More often, though, carefully constructed compositions like I Was Happy When You Died and Puncture Wounds To Heaven call to mind the massive soundscapes of Caspian and This Will Destroy You, or the downbeaten twang of Celtic cousins like Funeral For A Friend and Idlewild at their most brilliantly understated.

Ultimately, as always, Casey’s music has always demanded to be heard and judged on its own mercurial terms. In that, How To Disappear is a hell of a way to step back into the limelight.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: La Dispute, Touché Amoré, Funeral For A Friend

How To Disappear is released on January 12 via Hassle

Read this: Casey: “Fulfilment is us communicating as a band again, and creating together”