For those who have followed my reviews through the years, I am pretty lenient on hardcore releases considering I am pretty picky with the genre. I have been able to review some great hardcore albums which in turn added some respect points from me. Having said that, I am perplexed when it comes to The Suffering Spirit (Good Fight) from New Jersey’s Old Wounds. I found myself absolutely in love with some of the tracks and then others had me holding my face in my hands, impatiently waiting for the next track. A positive pointer for me is I enjoy the harsh vocals for the most part. The clean vocals, however, seemed a little bland and just came off as simply a needful break from the harsh vocals. Instrumentally, Old Wounds is a tightly captained ship that sounds like what you would expect from a modern hardcore band. Oh and breakdowns. It might just be impossible to have a hardcore band write music without a breakdown nowadays.

The album opener, ‘Rest in Piss’, had a great feel for the opening track in an attempt to set the mood across all eleven tracks. Each time through The Suffering Spirit, this song would get me excited to hear the rest, but I only enjoyed a few other tracks. ‘The Secret Song at the Center of the World’ was one of the tracks that grabbed my attention once again with its slow tempo and sluggish personality. The same sort of characteristics seen in this track are seen later on in the album on ‘Moral Hex. These two tracks alone will get your head banging. I feel as if Old Wounds went for a more mature sound on these two tracks and really hit the nail on the head, unlike most of the remainder of the album. The final track, ‘Desecrate’, was one of the more interesting tracks on the album. Not only is this the longest track at over four minutes, but it sounded like a Mudvayne song with hardcore elements over it.

As a whole, I was not feeling Old Wound’s latest album. In no way did I think this was an awful album either, just not that exciting. In a larger spectrum, when it comes to modern hardcore, this latest release from the Jersey foursome is certainly one of the better ones I have listened to.

6.5/10

TIM LEDIN