REVIEW

The debut album from Canadian shoegaze band never easy introduces a project shaped around the core partnership of ugly (guitar, bass, vocals) and numb (drums, vocals). From the outset, the record distinguishes itself through a heavy shoegaze sound informed by nu-metal influences, while its slower tempos and patient pacing suggest an affinity with the melancholic restraint of slowcore.

Rather than relying on constant intensity, the album favors a down-tempo approach that allows melancholy to accumulate gradually. In this sense, echoes of artists like Duster can be felt—not as imitation, but as a shared sensibility rooted in stillness, weight, and emotional suspension. It is a record well suited to moments when immersion, rather than immediacy, is the goal.

The album’s emotional peak arrives in its closing stretch. Track #9, “are you happy,” freezes the listener in place with blizzard-like sheets of guitar noise, before flowing seamlessly into “you’d be home now.” Here, clean vocals and bursts of screaming overlap and collide, forming a climactic sequence that feels both cathartic and unresolved.

It is somewhat surprising that “choke,” the single that initially drew attention to the band, does not appear on the album. Even so, the debut makes a strong case for never easy’s potential. With the band now appearing to be increasingly active on the live circuit, this release reads less like a final statement and more like the opening chapter of a project poised for further growth.