For Keeps album cover. via calibertv.net
On Friday, March 8, 2024, Too Close to Touch released the most anticipated album of the last few years for the Metal and Hardcore scene. It was the first release from the lauded Kentucky hardcore group since 2020 when they released the four-volume series of EPs entitled “I’m Hard to Love, But So Are You,” and also serves as the band’s final goodbye to music, and to their beloved frontman Keaton Pierce, who died of pancreatitis in 2022. The album entitled “For Keeps” had been in the works since before Pierce’s death but had to be put on hold after his sudden death. The title of the album is a play on one of Pierce’s nicknames, based on his initials KP.
“For Keeps” contains the last recorded songs Pierce did before his death. Yet the band was unable to finish recording all of the songs before his death. From here, Too Close to Touch turned to metal and hardcore giants The Word Alive, Bad Omens and Cane Hill to help to finish bringing Pierce’s final songs to life. While all the songs were written before Pierce’s death, they are an apt final goodbye from a frontman who dedicated his life to his fans and friends.
Each song deals with sadness and loss, almost preemptive of the loss the band suffered. Listening to the album with the knowledge of Pierce’s untimely death adds to the emotional experience of the album, but it carries emotional weight even when considered in a vacuum. Most notably the song “Heavy Hearts” cuts deeply, dealing with the idea of losing someone you love. The most gripping song of them all is “Control,” which details a narrator sinking deeper and deeper into hopelessness and fear where only the dead listen to his screams.
While the album is thoroughly gut-wrenching in its tone and significance, it is not entirely an album of despair and doom, but even the hopeful aspects of the album are overshadowed by the grief of Pierce’s passing. Many of the songs maintain Too Close to Touch’s signature sound with Pierce’s vocals carrying the emotional weight of the songs, but the songs completed in conjunction with the other artists stand out on the album as especially heavy. In these three songs, the absence of Pierce’s vocals seems to communicate the emotions through the sheer emptiness of it.
Too Close to Touch’s “For Keeps” is the final chapter in the history of the band, with multiple remaining members remarking that the band cannot continue without Pierce with them. It serves as a thank you to the fans while also giving one last time to hear Pierce’s voice and communicate the band members’ grief through his words. Yet the album also served to send another message, one that the band made sure to spell out when they released the album on March 8. In a post on Instagram announcing the imminent release of the album, the band wrote, “Tell your friends that you love them.” A sobering reminder that we do not always know when it might be the last time we see someone, and not to make sure the people we love know that they are loved while we can still tell them. So tell your friends you love them and R.I.P. Keaton.