Heartless Breakers

While Heartless Breakers hail from Salt Lake City, the band have a sound that is positively East Coast. It’s easy to identify the influence of ex-Daytrader guitarist Matt Mascarenas, but comparisons to Virginia’s Fairweather or New Jersey’s Thursday wouldn’t be out of question, either. And that goes for more than just their music—on “Carbon Copy,” the band’s lyrics are a cut above the rest, tackling issues of depression and emotional struggle, and the Everett Fitch-directed music video perfectly conveys that. Fitch explains:

“There’s this old flour mill left over from the Battle of Stalingrad during WWII. It survived months of air raids and gunfights while most every other building in the city collapsed. Relentless attacks did damage but not enough to make it fall. Massive windows and doors make up the building so when the bombs hit, the blasts were able to escape, to go somewhere instead of being trapped inside to do more damage.

What’s so beautiful about this is how true it is to human nature. I think we all tend to keep explosions inside of us. We’re afraid to let them out because they’re painful. But just like that still-standing building in Russia, we need to embrace every last explosion. We need to build windows and doors within ourselves and let the pain pass through. Otherwise, we become shadows of ourselves. Where who we want to be isn’t who we choose to be. Where we become unsuspecting victims and heirs of pain passed down. This music video is about that waking-life and unconscious-life dichotomy. It’s about pain dividing you in two if you let it. It’s about living a life within a life where self-medication takes the place of self-awareness. It’s about finally learning to embrace, not neglect, those deep-seated and everyday explosions.” - Scott Heisel

Heartless Breakers finally gave us what we were all aching for, their first full-length album The Great Give Back from Animal Records. The title completely suits the situation, for we have been begging for something more after their first two EP’s Prescriptions and Lighter Doses. With only ten songs, The Great Give Back gives the perfect taste of what Heartless Breakers is all about. Made up of Matt Macarenas (guitar), Chase Griffis (vocals), Bryan Lee (drums), and most recently Sean Jurewicz (guitar), they bleed pure emotion into this record, leaving their fans and myself breathless.

The album opens up with “Right Mistakes” reeling you in with crisp drumbeats from Lee and lustrous vocals from Griffis. Although claiming rock as their genre, you can feel of hint of alternative and pop/punk sound and maybe even some influence like standout names such as Taking Back Sunday and The Story So Far. As the album rolls on, Griffis’ voice becomes more of a standout as you move through each song, whether it’s standing on it’s own or flowing with the rest of the band, it is spot on. Ending with “The Great Give Back”, a melody to perfectly conclude the album has incredible sound from Jurewicz and Macarenas and a subtle but powerful heartbeat sound from Lee. It quickly leads you out making you wonder what could have been said. Check out the album premiering March 10th and upcoming spring tour “Sundressed” dates below. - Tiffany Taylor

I’ve been talking about bands that take me back to the mid 2000’s a lot lately. I don’t make a conscious effort to do so, but a lot of what I end up reviewing really hits me right in the nostalgia. We saw it a couple of weeks ago when I reviewed the incredible debut album from Makeshift Shelters, and you’re going to hear about it again today, only not so feverishly. Heartless Breakers is the new project of Matt Mascarenas, formerly of Daytrader, and their debut album ‘The Great Give Back’ is an incredible mid-2000’s emo record. That’s to be expected when you talk about an FFO that includes the likes of Taking Back Sunday, Armor For Sleep, and Thrice.

The influence taken from those same bands is immediately apparent on ‘The Great Give Back’, and it greets you with open arms. I found myself completely swept up in the opening riff of “Right Mistakes,” and the vocals kicked in and, in the best way possible, I was lost. I can promise you that had this record come out during the golden age of Myspace, there would have been a point in time where this is what you would have heard upon visiting my profile. I feel like an obnoxiously angsty kid when this song comes on, and I love that.

I can’t even begin to tell you how great “Carbon Copy” is. If you’ve heard the song already, you should understand. If not, here’s my attempt at explaining it. To get things started, the track is incredibly catchy. One of the best parts of this song is the fact that the chorus changes every time with the exception of the line “So leave the bedroom light on with the door cracked open.” Each time the chorus hits, it’s a further development in lyrical storytelling. And then before the last chorus, there’s an acoustic bridge that sounds so much like something off the last The Early November record. The vocals are on par with those of Enders, and I dare you to tell me that it doesn’t remind you of “Digital Age.”

Every record has a sweet spot, but the entire first half of this album is said sweet spot. The first five songs on ‘The Great Give Back’ are incredible, and the fact that almost all of them were released as singles stands as a testament to that. The only one of the five not released is “An Aching Kind of Growing,” and I can see why it wasn’t chosen to promote the album. The song is great, but it’s a very mild-tempered song and gets off to a very slow start. It wouldn’t have done the Heartless Breakers sound immediate justice, and so it sits as a hidden gem, waiting to be heard. Interestingly enough, this is also a pretty accurate summary of the record as a whole.

Every song on this album feels confident, complete, and huge. There’s not a single part of this record that feels like it deserves to be skipped over, because you can hear the heart and soul that went into this record. Songs like “Subdued” and “Liquid Confidence” live on the second half of this record. These are also tracks that I would love to see made into post-release singles, especially that of the first of the two.

“Liquid Confidence” is one of the biggest feeling songs on the record. This is the song that could make Heartless Breakers a much more recognizable name. And if I can talk again about the feeling of nostalgia and time travel, it would have been an immediate success in the mid 2000’s, and would probably have launched them into the same heights as bands like Armor For Sleep. The song is just so tangible and feels refreshing.

I’m going to break away from the music for a second and talk about the aesthetic. Beyond the sound we’ve been talking about up to this point the album art for ‘The Great Give Back’ is incredible. It feels like it was ripped out right out of the 00’s, and really adds something to the record. Obviously not in listening quality, but its nice to see a record presented as a whole package that just works.

Before we go, I want to talk about the catharsis that is the instrumental title track of this record. I don’t have very much to say without being incredibly repetitive, but you should know that it really brings the album together. It’s a surprisingly great end to this record that gives the listener a sense of closure. If nothing else, it makes ‘The Great Give Back’ feel like a very complete, well-planned body of work.

Heartless Breakers are, and deserve to be, proud of their debut album, and it’s not hard to see why. ‘The Great Give Back’ is packed full of incredible gems, and the listening experience as a whole is admirable. Every track feels at home in its place on the record, and have helped make this album into stunning body of work that it is. Hopefully people eat this record up, and if not, I know that it will go down as one of the biggest blunders looking back. 5/5 - Joel Funk

Salt Lake City band Heartless Breakers released their new video for the track, “Carbon Copy” earlier this month. The track is a powerful anthem dealing with depression and the monsters that accompany it. The band teamed up with director Everett Fitch of Big American Story ( a very cool project, which you can check out more of here: http://www.bigamericanstory.com/) on the video and the result is beautiful and poignant. Fitch had the following to say about the creation of the video:

“There’s this old flour mill left over from the Battle of Stalingrad during WWII. It survived months of air raids and gunfights while most every other building in the city collapsed. Relentless attacks did damage but not enough to make it fall. Massive windows and doors make up the building so when the bombs hit, the blasts were able to escape, to go somewhere instead of being trapped inside to do more damage.

What’s so beautiful about this is how true it is to human nature. I think we all tend to keep explosions inside of us. We’re afraid to let them out because they’re painful. But just like that still-standing building in Russia, we need to embrace every last explosion. We need to build windows and doors within ourselves and let the pain pass through. Otherwise, we become shadows of ourselves. Where who we want to be isn’t who we choose to be. Where we become unsuspecting victims and heirs of pain passed down. This music video is about that waking-life and unconscious-life dichotomy. It’s about pain dividing you in two if you let it. It’s about living a life within a life where self-medication takes the place of self-awareness. It’s about finally learning to embrace, not neglect, those deep-seated and everyday explosions.”

“Carbon Copy” can be found on The Great Give Back, which is available now (it’s been in heavy rotation around here, definitely go check it out). The guys are currently touring with Arizona band Sundressed (we covered their Indiegogo campaign last year in our Indie-Funded feature). Check the links at the bottom for tour dates, where and how to buy their music and more. - Kerriann Curtis