Worth the Pain

Editors’ Notes San Francisco’s Letters from the Fire made a powerful 2016 debut with a fiery brand of dramatic alt-rock that’s not just hard but poignant. “Bruised” builds towering choruses on top of singer Alexa Kabazie’s heavy-hearted vocals and nuanced acoustic guitar, while “Perfect Life” is a blitzkrieg of thundering percussion and dizzying fretwork. The relentless title track comes on like a tidal wave, with bruising, head-banging verses en route to a chorus that burns with a kiss-off message of strength through adversity.