It’s hard to believe that a band capable of writing such emotionally wrenching screamo and post-hardcore music hails from the charismatic, vibrant streets of Madrid, Spain. While these streets are often bustling with happy people, busy bars, and crowded businesses, individuals everywhere share the same emotional complexities. This is certainly true for Boneflower, a band that has embraced a hard-working DIY attitude since its inception. They’ve toured extensively across Europe, sharing stages with genre heavyweights like Touché Amoré and Loma Prieta. The attitudes and emotions the band aims to capture on their album transcend cultural boundaries, and the record’s debut on Deathwish Inc., a label founded by Converge’s Jacob Bannon, featuring Jeremy Bolm of Touché Amoré, is a testament to this global appeal.
While it’s genuinely heartening to see Boneflower gaining traction with both their idols and a growing fanbase, their album, Reveries, also highlights some of the growing pains many new bands face. Despite being active since 2015, the album reveals struggles common to many screamo bands in 2025. However, this observation doesn’t diminish the band’s and its members’ talents; Reveries is a showcase of remarkable lyrical prowess, with the band performing as well as, or arguably even better than, their idols.
Boneflower’s unique brand of screamo draws you into a sense of calm and serenity, only to leave you utterly devastated with its underlying intensity. Tracks like ‘Nocturnal’ or ‘I Gazed At The Starred Night All Alone And Blood Tasted Like Honey In My Mouth, Lethargic’ don’t incite violent sobs on the floor. Instead, they exude a profound sentimentality and composure, creating the kind of peace that allows you to quietly reminisce in bed, eyes closed, reflecting on anything and everything as your mind drifts. This effect is achieved through the band’s deliberate instrumentation in these quieter moments, where they clearly find solace in the vast, dense meditations of post-rock. These soundscapes, characterized by their slow-building, atmospheric textures, gracefully give way to elements of shoegaze, with its washed-out, ethereal guitar layers.
However, while this slow-burning emotional build-up undeniably culminates in powerful catharsis, the album eventually succumbs to a pervasive sense of repetitive familiarity. As you’re guided through one seemingly nondescript composition after another, the distinctions between tracks blur into an indistinguishable haze. Each song begins to feel like little more than a rehash of the same set of instructions from the screamo playbook. This sense of repetition is only amplified when you consider how many other “heavy” bands, from Demersal to Suis La Lune, have wholeheartedly embraced these very same genres as Boneflower, making the sound feel less distinctive with each passing track.
Yet, somehow, these detours often feel entirely worth it, given the sheer depth of what the band has to say and grieve about. Their lyrical prowess is striking, with stanzas ranging from vivid, evocative poetry, especially on songs like ‘Pomegranate’ with lines such as “Kissing you is like kissing a beehive, a mouth that is / Congregating sorrows, whistling melancholia” and “I long for the silent sound / Of sad swords on my skin.” Then, without warning, the band can be as direct and cutthroat as possible, as heard on ‘Coup de Grâce’ with stark declarations like “I want no peace / I want no peace, just sustain the impulse / An empty body in a full room.”
It is this raw honesty and dynamic storytelling that ultimately elevates Boneflower’s sound, making their journey through tranquility and turmoil a compelling, albeit at times familiar, experience—familiar in the sense that while these lyrics, seemingly penned by a literary genius, manage to precisely articulate profound feelings, all punctuated with vocal fry that mimics a demon with a strong sense of humanity stowed deep within its blackened soul.
Words by Mishael Lee
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