There’s a tugging urgency and a genuine angst that has always managed to earth Cult of Youth’s theatrical, melodramatic din. Final Days still tugs, but it transcends angst. If Love Will Prevail saw a band on the verge of misery, Final Days sees a band fully plummeting into the crevice and finding their feet when they reach the solid footing in the depths. It’s a record of bare, punk intensity that removes main man Sean Ragon’s pastoral, neofolk pretensions and pushes into territory that has more in common with their Sacred Bones labelmates The Men than it does with their frequent gig buddies Death in June.

What does remain is Ragon’s signature, unsettling baritone. His cigarette-torn howls and drunken caterwauling scratch out of the fuzz on the post-punk coloured God’s Garden. This time around however, his voice is underpinned with punk, and Empty Faction ties down an intensity that feels both progressive and entirely recognisable in one breath.

Final Days is not quite the jewel in Ragon’s jagged crown but it’s certainly a step in the right direction, one which graces the edges of being something truly breathtaking. It’s also at points overbearingly grandiose – the military horns of final track Rosesblow are as pompous as anything the band have recorded – veering towards utterly ridiculous. But let’s face it; if it wasn’t utterly ridiculous, it just wouldn’t be Cult of Youth.

Billy Black