Phoenix emo outfit Commoner are ready to properly introduce themselves. The Arizona band will release their debut album Former Self on November 13 via Pure Noise Records, arriving with two new singles that pull at different corners of the record’s emotional fabric.
Cemetery Dogs leads the charge, pairing turbulent rhythms with a bruised sense of helplessness. The song circles the experience of watching someone change beyond recognition and realising there is only so much you can do to reach them. It is a fitting doorway into an album preoccupied with identity, memory and the uncomfortable distance that can open between who somebody was and who they have become.
Alongside it comes Sirens A Block Away, a more unsettled proposition that carries its tension beneath the surface. Together, the two tracks suggest Commoner are interested in more than simply revisiting familiar emo territory, using contrast and unease to give Former Self its own shape.
Produced by longtime collaborator Zach Tuch, Former Self looks backwards without getting stuck there. Earlier single Breach acted as the bridge between Commoner’s past and present, while the album captures the band as they exist now. Childhood, ageing and changing relationships all feed into songs that examine not only the person you used to be, but the versions of other people that disappear along the way.
For a debut album, Former Self finds Commoner tackling some fairly sizeable questions. Rather than offering neat conclusions, the band appear more interested in documenting the strange business of becoming someone new while still carrying all those previous versions of yourself around. November will reveal just how far that idea takes them.
