A new group, known simply as Hatchend, has forcibly hatched its way into existence with members from differing death metal and grindcore bands. The debut album, Summer of ‘69 (Selfmadegod Records) dropped and it goes full throttle for thirty-three minutes. Bringing in their previous influences and dumping them on top of crossover foundations sets up quite the demolition derby of sound.

“Who’s The Foe Today” was the first track that grabbed my attention immediately and kept it for the whole track (nearly five minutes). The guitar riffs are everything I love about thrash metal, but layering it on underlying grindcore aggression is quite the mix.

“Scapegoat” is another attention grabber of a song as it maintains a solid d-beat line all with more fantastic guitar riffage that will make you raise a fist and run in a circle. This might be one of the faster tracks on all of Summer of ‘69 as well, so be sure to stretch thoroughly before running into the pit for this one.

“Fascist By Design” is the only track to hit the five-minute mark but it certainly is not a drawn-out song. The intro certainly felt like a shoutout to Stormtroopers of Death but then quickly devolves into the grimey speed and aggression that Hatchen has been hammering into your ears by this point. Right at the two-minute mark there is a nice rhythm section that should bring in the heavy hitters in the pit to give the circle pit-goers a break, but not a long one.

Overall, this is a fun album that very much has a formulaic approach and they execute well. Nothing groundbreaking, but certainly worth the half hour to get your heart rate up and your head banging. I do enjoy having a bit more variety across the tracks though, or even just a few, so that I can tell the songs apart. Regardless of the bit of criticism, I do hope that Hatchend gets to bring this aggression and speed to a venue near us all.

Buy the album here:
https://selfmadegod.bandcamp.com/album/summer-of-69

7 / 10
TIM LEDIN