When ordering from McDonald’s, you don’t complain about how the burger was grilled. When watching a movie from the Saw franchise, you don’t complain about how gory the film is.
When listening to Terror, you don’t complain about the short length of songs; you don’t complain about the near-constant headbanging riffs laid down underneath infuriated, irate vocals; you don’t complain about the aggression displayed both in the music and the lyrics.
The California-based hardcore group has been a constant both in that they’ve been around since 2002, and they’ve churned out records at a relatively consistent rate (also following a pattern of two records per label before moving on to another).
The latest example of Terror’s unwavering might is Pain Into Power, the band’s second Pure Noise release and the follow-up to 2018’s Total Retaliation. If you go into this expecting guitar solos, eclectic bass lines and clean choruses, I really don’t know what to tell you. Twenty years into it, Terror have been beatdown titans, probably longer than a sizeable portion of their fan base has been alive.
While consuming the ten grindcore-length (and at times influenced) tracks, the rage returned, the frustration festered, and the cynicism surfaced. ‘Pain Into Power’ is visceral, girthy and chuggy. Scott Vogel has been the frontman since Terror’s inception, and thank God for that. His brand of beatdown-leading vocals has become iconic within the scene and instantly recognizable.
There is no shortage of straightforward, classic Terror lyrics: “Don’t you fucking question us” (‘Outside The Lies’), “Pick up the pieces of your broken life” (‘One Thousand Lies’) and “So dedicated to Hardcore” (‘Pain Into Power’).
Also, appropriate for the times, you can get through the entire record in the time it takes for you to get ready for work. The attention-span-starved society of 2022 should have no trouble with that. And to make things more fun (and brutal), George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher provides the refrain on ‘Can’t Help But Hate,’ satisfyingly converging two vocal deliveries that are equal parts heavy and familiar.
Twenty years of Terror, and the fire still burns.
Buy the album here: https://purenoise.merchnow.com/collections/terror
8 / 10
MATT COOK