This era of Career Funeral has been a long time coming. The band was initially formed by college roommates Jenna Taylor (bass) and Kate Nieman (vocals/guitar) with a different drummer and guitar player. Along the way, they picked up Daniel Lasecki (drums), and as of recently, they have been playing with Bella’s Beatdown Bunker’s own Zach Antonelli (guitar). Up until February of this year, their work consisted of three projects and a 2023 single that shall not be named–all of which have been scrubbed from streaming platforms. Their most recent piece is an album titled “if not here, then where?”

“if not here, then where?” was released in early Feburary of this year. The album is an ode to the band’s evolution, as well as their future. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Deftones, Fleshwater, and the early 00s screamo revival, this record is incredibly varied sonically; through the process, they’ve battled expression while keeping everything cohesive–this is a battle they’ve won. The album incorporates very melodic, dreamy guitars with heavy screamo adjacent breakdowns in a way that works perfectly. Tracks like “i hate you, but i still look for you and everything” and “swearswearswear” draw from very different places, but are clearly cut from the same cloth. As well as this, their shoegaze influences act as a throughline, tying together the harsher and softer tracks.

“I feel like our influences are so all over the place that I don’t know how much of it is recognizable,” Taylor said. “One aspect we do always look to involve is a big wall of sound,” Lasecki added. 

One of the most standout things about this album is how it reads as a confessional. The majority of the songs were written by Nieman and focus on emotions that are incredibly raw and complex. The heaviest tack for me was “i hate you, but i still look for you in everything.” On this, Nieman tackles losing someone close, how that changes you, as well as the conflicting feelings that come with it. It goes “Time is of the essence and with each passing second I think about how things used to be//I ask myself, how am I supposed to let this go when I hate you but I still look for you in everything.” The track “untitled (interlude)” exists in a similar vein. Put against a hauntingly stripped-down acoustic guitar, the lyrics “Loving you feels like hanging from a window//But there’s nothing like this view…I don’t want to know myself without you,” feel painfully intimate.

“It took me a lot of years and a lot of trial and error to get to a place where I feel I can really speak about the way I feel in a way that matches the energy of our music,” Nieman said. “I’m really proud of the way that it came out.”

Almost a month after the record came out, they began their tour with insearchofbastilla, a fellow Detroit hardcore band. The tour was five days long and featured shows in Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus, Muskegon and Detroit. When asked what their favorite show from the tour was, it seemed to be a 50/50 split between Columbus and Detroit.

“The kids just turn it out across the Midwest, I don’t know,” Nieman said. 

A lot of what came from the album initially became recontextualized after the tour. They found that some of the songs led themselves more to a live performance where others functioned better as an album track.

“I will say that for this tour specifically, we were going with {insearchofbastilla} and I think we wanted to bring that heavier sound and energy to this tour,” Nieman said. “Some [songs] are just way more fun to play live especially when its lining up with the energy of the other bands on the bill.” Lasecki added.

Along with the songs on the album, the band also played new songs that are set to be released this summer. Their focus will be on a heavier sound that takes shape around a live performance rather than a recording. Until then, you can listen to “if not here, then where?” on Spotify.