If I curve my hands around my mouth and shout, “BELGIUM,” what’s the first thing that comes to your mind (besides What is this nitwit doing randomly shouting the names of European countries)? Maybe you think of delicious, hot waffles with ice cream melting on top. Or an ice-cold Stella Artois on a hot summer day? Perhaps the national soccer team’s outstanding performance in the 2014 World Cup finals that was expected by exactly no one?

I’ll bet the first thing you don’t think about is hardcore music. But Tessenderlo’s Moments seek to set you straight. And if the five-song Outlast EP doesn’t set you straight within song number one, the furious and unrelenting ‘What If’, then get your ass out of the pit and trade your Stella Artois in for a Coors Light because flavored water is all you deserve.

The most common illness in modern Hardcore is the dreaded One Dimensional Monotone Vocalist Syndrome (it’s a real thing; look it up). This may be why so many of the newer bands have two vocalists. Thankfully, Moments’ Dries Monsieurs does not suffer from such a malady. Monsieurs spits vicious through the opening track and into the first couple of stompy, groovy minutes in ‘All It Takes’ before opening up those vocal cords and showing—in a refreshingly atypical song structure—how clean vocals should work against riffs like these.

And guitarists Jeffery Beutels and Kristof Fransen are certainly well-versed in the power of the riff, channeling not only stalwarts like Hatebreed and The Ghost Inside, but even mixing it up with some contemporary In Flames on ‘Crossroads’. Don’t be surprised if you hear ‘Our Faults, Our Failures’ on the radio sandwiched between While She Sleeps and Linkin Park (gasp!), and don’t be surprised if you find yourself bouncing around in your living room to ‘House of Habits’ and singing that hooky, harmonic pre-verse progression.

See that? Belgium has much more to offer than waffles and beer.

8.0/10

JASON KOROLENKO