EMI North / Launchpad+ – 30th March 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
The 113 have done it again – only this time, more so. Like its predecessors, single ‘When I Leave’ is take from the forthcoming debut EP, The Hedonist, which is due to land on 17th April. And once again, it steps things up.
It follows the noisy path of debut, ‘Leach’, a vitriolic blast which powers in on a thick, thunderous overdriven bass, paired with an attack of heavy-hitting, cymbal-smashing percussion, slamming in with hard impact in the opening bars. Immediately, it’s the sound of a band that means business and arrives with a physical force. The vocals are straight in with a pumped-up spleen-venting tone of disaffection, and on this outing, the focus of their dissection and dissatisfaction with the conditions of contemporary living is lasered in on ‘the personal, exploring the gamified and repetitive nature of dating apps, where every interaction can seemingly begin to blur into the next’.
The accompanying notes expand on this, explaining how ‘the track captures that specific sense of cyclical monotony; scripted conversations, fleeting intimacy, and the almost inevitable feeling of disillusionment that can occur following the search for something real within systems designed with the purpose of endless scrolling: “Nice to meet you! Scratch the skin and we’re done, and hold the stench of a thousand pros playing for fun”.
Does anyone actually gain anything but grief and stress from dating apps? A few shit experiences, perhaps gathering a stalker or pest along the way, but really, how many find love – versus how many find nothing but the dregs of humanity?
It’s perhaps relevant to mention here that I met my (now late) wife online, in a music chatroom, at the turn of the millennium, before dating sites existed and before it was socially acceptable to meet people from online in real life. Her friends and parents were far from encouraging about her meeting me: back in 2000, the perception was that the Internet was full of weirdos, creeps, stalkers, and worse. Now… perhaps we’re more willing to take those gambles with the ever-expanding creep of isolation as a result of floating office hours, where people only see one another occasionally, the death of after-work drinks, and social media taking precedence over in-person interaction. How do you meet new people nowadays? Is this really what we’ve come to? It would seem the answer is yes….
And then, the guitar kicks in over that thick bass and pounding percussion, and it’s squalling and dissonant and then everything hits a laser focus to drive home a blistering chorus – their strongest yet – and POW! ‘When I Leave’ is two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of concentrated, distilled intensity.
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Credit: Naomi Whitehead
Aural Aggravation 