Its about walking through the storm. Life gets rough, but you have to keep going. You can’t just sit there in your rut and give up, you have to persevere through set backs to grow.” 

Not long ago, we published a new album review that was poised upon a specific question: What does it mean to persevere? Such loaded question that marvels its own ideological imprints; nuances in syntactic imagery alone conjur up plenty of possibilities. It’s a question that Norwich-based pop-punk outfit Crossing The Limits has made itself the object of circumstance for their new EP Perseverance. For frontwoman Rachael Holland, it became an exercise in creating lyrical art that could stand tantamount to her own words above.

Quick licks and power riffs abound an EP that is every bit sporadic as pop-punk is expected to be. Spates of powerpop systematically engulf lush overtures of quick melodic licks under two unabating focal points of a driving backbeat and Holland’s commanding lyricism and sustained vocal harmonies. Deftly melodic and shamelessly poppish, Perseverance is a compelling and crowd-pleasing first attempt in a genre that is oversaturated in entrenching suburban gloom. Does it answer the question posed? Absolutely not (nor would it ever), but it is an ample start to a lifelong answering process.

We have the immense pleasure of digging a little bit deeper into the steadfastness that is Crossing The Limits’ Perseverance EP, penned by Rachael Hollands. As always, an embedding of the album can be found below, courtesy of Spotify. Read, listen, and enjoy!

“Won’t Settle”

This track is pop with an edge: it’s happy, bright sounding, upbeat and catchy. Lyrically, I wrote the song about a girl I had dated. I was really into her and she was the first person I’d liked for a while after coming out of a bad break up. Our chemistry was undeniable but we weren’t on the same page. She was emotionally disconnected and anytime I’d try and confront her about it she’d just run away. It’s hard letting go of someone that you care about, but if you’re not getting the same respect in return, you have to put yourself first and don’t settle for what isn’t making you happy. The main chorus riff was the first part written and the rest of the song came together fairly quickly after that. It was the first song we recorded and finished all the way through for Perseverance, and really set the sound for the whole EP. It changed a lot over the recording process, but the outcome was even better than we had imagined. It’s been a mainstay of the live set and it’s always fun to play live.

“Predictable”

What you can expect from this track is fun, bouncy, punchy, and a whole lot of attitude! This was the last song written before we entered the studio. We were struggling to choose the last song to take with us. Tom came up with the chorus riff in the practice room and the rest was history! The guitar parts both share lead duties on this song, so it’s fun to do duelling guitars when we play it live. It’s got that classic ‘pop-punk party’ vibe to it. It’s a good one to get the crowd involved and out of the comfort zone. The inspiration for the lyrics of this song came to me when I was in a bad mood- I was tired of seeing everyone around me giving up on things that they loved to do just to fall in line with everyone else. I feel like people lose themselves because they decide to do what they’re expected to do, rather than what they want to do. People can sometimes make our dreams and goals feel unachievable, and if we believe them and don’t listen to ourselves, we’re letting ourselves down and destroying our own dreams. You have to do what makes you happy no matter what anybody thinks.

“Reverse”

This started as two songs that Tom merged the chords together to. Tom and I spent a while messing around with the structure as I was writing the lyrics alongside it, which really helped develop the song as a whole. The song didn’t change too much in the studio, but all the additional riffs and synth parts really added to the sound, and it came out amazing! It’s great live, as it’s one of those songs that has a big, beefy sound, but also has some nice stops-and-starts in it to give everyone a burst of energy. Lyrically, the song was inspired by a really bad heartbreak I’d been through, how for a long time after me and this person had broken up I was living in reverse in my head, thinking about us and the memories constantly. I was torturing myself. This song is really me making peace with all of that. I hope someone can relate to this song and can find some kind of comfort in it.

“Chaos”

You can expect mellow, hopeful, and uplifting [feelings] from this song. We wanted to write a song that had a picky lead and [“Chaos”] is what turned out. Adding the thrashing power chords underneath gives the song a real relentless feel. It was fun to record this one in the studio, as a lot of the structure was changed about to make parts of it snappier. [In live performance], the song is great to throw in the middle of the set to ease it down for a minute to give our crowd a break from all the energy with the mellow verses. But, the chorus is pretty full on, so they don’t get off that easy! Lyrically, the song “really comes from a place of feeling lost, but still having a hope that things will be alright. You can really think you’ve got it all figured out sometimes, and then the floor gets pulled from under your feet and you’re back at square one. All you can do is rebuild from where you are. It’s a reminder to anyone who feels lost to keep it moving, you’ll find your way again and you’ll start to understand why some things have to fall apart.

“My Own Way”

What you can expect from this song is a fast, upbeat, happy track! This is the oldest song out of all of them on Perseverance. It actually started as a slow acoustic song, and we changed the main part to be distorted and a lot quicker. It’s got more of a rock feel than a lot of the other tracks and almost a double-rhythm effect on the verse guitars which really fill out the sound. It didn’t change too much in recording, besides adding lots of background vocals and the sound of the drums in the breakdown, but it came out sounding great. It’s a great song to play live, as there’s lots of challenging drums on the track. This song always seems to go down well with the crowd, it gets everybody moving! Lyrically, the song is about not being afraid to walk alone. I wrote it about when my last band had called it a day- I’d put so much of myself into that band and was really good friends with the people in it. I felt truly lost and disheartened when it was over, but I knew I wasn’t done. I wasn’t about to stay in that miserable rut I was in, so I pulled myself together and started from the bottom. It’s the last track on the EP and the last line in the song is “It’s almost like I believe in me again” which really feels fitting, as it’s the place I got to after persevering through it all.