Misadventures

Breakneck, intricate, and achingly passionate, *Misadventures* is opera-like skate punk. The four-year break since *Collide With the Sky* seems to have only made the band more ambitious, giving rise to multi-part song-suites that balance delicate rhythmic turns with hardcore breakdowns, and prettiness with breathless aggression. Most striking, in a way, is when the band settles into a lower gear, like on the uplifting “Bedless” or bittersweet “Floral & Fading,” where vocalist Victor Fuentes tones down his scream to confess, “Together we can fake our own death here / Just wanna be alone and watch as you all just disappear.”

The fourth studio long-player from the San Diego-based post-hardcore unit, Misadventures is as ambitious, hook-laden, and spilling over with unrepentant melodrama as anything Pierce the Veil has accomplished to date.

Pierce the Veil emerged with A Flair for the Dramatic in 2007, a climactic time for the post-hardcore genre, as mainstays such as Silverstei...