“Of all the things I thought I’d be excited about this year, the metalcore side project of Alex Erian from Despised Icon was not one of them. But sometimes life throws you a delightful curveball, giving you lemonade instead of lemons. Here, life also happened to put a generous double shot of vodka into my lemonade. I’m normally a beer guy, but like an unanticipated alcoholic lemonade, Balance is refreshing.” Drink up.
“Some people spend their weekend running errands, and I’m no different. This weekend, as I write this review, I’ll be running a fool’s errand and disagreeing with the genre tag of a “deathcore” album. Genre fans and detractors will have the same reaction: “who cares, it’s all about the chugs anyway.” You chug water for different reasons than you chug beer (unless it’s Coors Light, which is both). The Rack chugs and Eternal Nightmare chugs. Disma chugs and Carnifex chugs. All of this is to say, Eye of the Destroyer’s second LP is beatdown, not deathcore.” Advanced pigeonholing.
“Sometimes, I hear a band and wonder if anybody actually listens to them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure plenty of people blast The Acacia Strain while working on their trucks or whatever, but are those people actually listening to the riffs and paying attention to the songwriting, or do they just want something br00tal blasting in the background? I suspect the answer is the latter, and such is my distaste for bands who build their songs solely from breakdowns. By its very nature, a breakdown is supposed to ‘break down’ the song.” Sack beatings and breakdowns.
You like metal, bro? More importantly, you like bro metal? Boy, have I got the thing for you. Chicago quintet Harm’s Way, a band that makes the last Dyscarnate album look like fucking Modest Mouse.” What are your bench press stats, brah?
“The state of deathcore in 2016 isn’t an enviable one. It’s not quite old enough yet to spur on needlessly salty debates about the best MySpace pages, and it’s not fashionable or ubiquitous enough anymore to act as a gateway to further extremity as it once did for so many. Suicide Silence was never that good to begin with, but their records have noticeably declined in quality since their debut. Job for a Cowboy has been a boring modern death metal band since Genesis. All Shall Perish hasn’t released an album since 2011, let alone a good one since 2008; the list goes on. Enter the best-known Canadian deathcore band that’s not Cryptopsy in 2008: Despised Icon.” Deathcore in da house!
We can argue about what the dividing line between metal and hard rock is until the cows come home, involve the cows in the argument until we feel like steaks, and then argue over some rare 16 oz. deliciousness and a wonderful glass of Cornet. But a satisfying conclusion will never be reached. New Jersey’s Hammer Fight and their sophomore record Profound and Profane are intent on making this fight even more difficult by walking the dividing line with the precision of a man who’s just consumed fifteen beers and is intent on doing a balancing act using the lines in the dive bar parking lot. Regardless of genre tags, what we’re all concerned with here is whether or not Hammer Fight is the life of the party or the unfortunate soul who pukes in the punch bowl and falls asleep on the staircase.
“Hardcore largely exists as a reaction to things in the world that invoke the ire of an angry singer. This can range from society as a whole (Pro-Pain), the government (Sick of It All), or some unnamed person who wronged the narrator so often and so consistently that it literally must be their job to anger the guy (Terror).” More music for Leg Day at the local gymnasium.
“Having recently gone through some much-needed “downsizing” in my personal life, hitting the gym has become a more common activity for me, so I selfishly jumped at the chance to review Salvation’s début album, Resurrect the Tradition. Salvation is a hardcore band featuring alumni of various other hardcore bands (including bassist Gary Meskil of Pro-Pain and Crumbsuckers), and this music is tailor-made to be a real life Game Genie for workouts.” Need some heavy hardcore for your heavy lifting? This might be your Salvation.
“June 10th, 2014: I looked out of my window and saw pigs flying, and shortly thereafter received a text from Satan asking why Hell just froze over. Suddenly I remembered that Ice-T’s rap metal outfit Body Count had just released Manslaughter, so I grabbed hold of one of the aforementioned pigs and flew to my local record store to pick up a copy. Upon hearing Manslaughter in its entirety, I texted Satan the answer to his question: “because a great rap metal album was released in 2014.”” There goes the neighborhood, again!
