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There’s an old adage about Boston and how its residents will treat you: cold, distant, and standoffish at the start, but over time what emerges is a certain warmth, a sort of familial bond that takes shape and becomes apparent just when you either need it most or when you least expect it. In a way, that oddly reflects the music and mood of True Faith, the Boston-based post-punk band whose longest-standing members, Travis Benson and Quentin Moyer, do not hail from New England, but instead have entrenched themselves within the city’s often lonely and militant culture of medical school.

Benson and Moyer’s time spent here, arriving from Portland, Oregon, and rural Eastern Pennsylvania, respectively, saw not only the formation of the band, but the crystallization of the True Faith sound to the point where it falls today: a disaffected twirl through the shadows of post-punk, darkwave, and electronic pop, but with a cerebral center based in the emotive state of the human condition. Like a proper Bostonian, it reveals its different layers the longer you spend time with it, and its affection slowly begins to glow from a core that is remarkably gentle and affirming.

And whether that’s by intent or not is beside the point. The emotion rooted in the True Faith sound is one reflected by Benson and Moyer’s experiences here in medical school and dalliances with the unforgiving and despondent Boston winter. Ironically, a break from studies brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic gave the pair time to flesh out what would become their debut album, January’s As Much Nothing As Possible LP, mixed and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios in Western Massachusetts and released digitally and on vinyl through emerging independent label via à La Carte Records.

“Boston can be a cold and desolate place,” admits Benson. “But I think the bigger influence has been us both being students and trudging through a dehumanizing career process. Burnout, depression, and suicide are all unfortunately common occurrences in our field and our own experiences traversing this landscape have absolutely been the biggest influence in the writing.”

True Faith originated as a Benson solo project, taking his love of post-punk and deathrock from his teenage years out west and creating an outlet for bleak, desolate compositions that complemented the overall feeling of defeat and malaise of life in 2020. The addition of Moyer, which came after True Faith released a self-titled cassette in June of 2020, both filled a void and allowed a proper path forward. This year, the band added fellow medical student Dylan Kotliar on bass and enlisted the help of Francisco Ilabaca on synth and Tom Weir of Old Moon on drums.

“I could sense the limitations I would have as a solo project, both from a technical aspect but even from a creativity aspect — I find it best to have others to bounce ideas off,” says Benson. “Quentin and I have played together before and I knew that his style would really complement mine well. His addition has been an asset in the terms of writing, which I feel is evident when you compare the material on the cassette vs the LP.”

But Benson still feels True Faith and its sound is “still a work in progress,” one that will likely evolve as the two continue their journey and they emerge from studies, whether that be here in Boston or elsewhere. “The reality is that this project is still in its infancy and still has a lot of room to grow and hone our own sound,” he says. “At the start of our collaboration together, we were separated due to social distancing and we relied on bouncing recordings back and forth to each other. Now that we are able to be together in the same location, it opens up more opportunities in terms of writing. I feel like our initial work has had a more rigid process due to that distance now we have the ability to adapt and alter things in real-time.

What They Can Always Hurt You More is, as it stands on the precipice of its release, is a testament to where True Faith is at this moment in time, both as a musical project entrenched in a new, more guitar-oriented brand of post-punk, but also for whom they are as people, living in a new city, approaching, embracing and at times rejecting the guarded layers that surround the skepticism of the people who call Boston home. And as the stark exterior begins to fade away, revealing the emotion hardened at its center, the album suggests this is just the beginning of a larger, as-yet-undefined story.

“My hope is that it heralds bigger things to come,” says Moyer, “while remaining timeless to what motivated us musically in the first place.”

The True Faith "In Vain" Shirt