Eight years on from You Will Never Be One of Us, Californian Powerviolence four-piece Nails return with their fourth full-length, Every Bridge Burning (Nuclear Blast Records), evidently intent on doing some damage.
Tag Archives: Hardcore album reviews
ALBUM REVIEW: Uniform – American Standard
New York City’s Uniform’s new album American Standard (Dias Records ) finds vocalist Michael Bearden in a soul-baring exploration of his struggles with bulimia. The album serves as Bearden’s catharsis. The strangled snarl of his yelled vocals paints an accurate picture of the self-loathing that comes with this neurosis. This captures a raw emotional tension that lurks under the mood of the songs. This is delivered through their ability as songwriters, which is a somewhat different story. The album begins with a sprawling opening track. For twenty-one minutes you are hit with a pounding drone, at times this grooves at it drones. This is the first of the sonic dichotomies this album is full of, so if you do not appreciate clashing concepts, it might not be for you.
ALBUM REVIEW: Trail of Lies – Only The Strong
Syracuse, New York will be familiar to fans of Straight-Edge Hardcore thanks to Earth Crisis and Trail of Lies can thus be seen as a continuation of this lineage.
ALBUM REVIEW: Blind Girls – An Exit Exists
Rising from Gold Coast, Australia, Hardcore quintet Blind Girls redefines standards with their own brand of the genre. With their new album, An Exit Exists (Persistent Vision Records), the band proves they know how to keep listeners on their toes.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Alarm! – Alarm!
Not content with the tunes created over the previous couple of decades with previous band Victims, members turned to new pastures with the latest hardcore punk collective, Alarm! Crossing over the sounds of melodic hardcore with previous endeavours in crust punk, Alarm! are set to make an explosive hit onto the Swedish punk scene with their debut self-titled effort via Armageddon Label.
ALBUM REVIEW: Rarity – Lower Feeling
While many modern Post-Hardcore bands have been testing the limits of the genre, there is a certain charm to the ones who are still keeping things raw and clear-cut. Canadian quartet Rarity continues to do just that with their third album Lower Feeling (New Damage Records/Dine Alone Records), combining Hardcore rage with Pop Punk catchiness.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Missing Link – Watch Me Bleed
Sometimes the day presents challenges to us all and we just need to swing haymakers in a pit. For days worse than that, there’s Missing Link. One of the most “unga bunga” ignorant Hardcore bands I’ve ever seen play (American Hardcore Festival 2023). Getting the chance to review their full-length debut, Watch Me Bleed (Triple B Records), is an absolute privilege. Eleven tracks (twelve if you count the hidden track) of unadulterated violence and aggression are going to stampede into your ears and not apologize for the disturbance.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To
Kentucky Hardcore stalwarts Knocked Loose continue to march forward in their vision of beatdown in the form of their third full-length, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To (Pure Noise). Twenty-seven minutes of cathartic aggression laced with panic riffs of nu-metal fame and climaxing at soul-crushing breakdowns is all the band needs to prove their rightful spot in the upper echelon of modern Hardcore. With three absolute banger singles put out before release of the album, the rest of the tracks need to stand out on their own as well, which they do.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: AWOL – Tear ‘Em To Bits
One of the defining characteristics of the hardcore scene is its emphasis on community and companionship, especially between the artists and the fans.
Australian up-and-comers AWOL have debuted with Flatspot Records for their sophomore record Tear ‘Em To Bits and this is, by and large, a hardcore album for the people.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Glassing – From the Other Side of the Mirror
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Glassing is an intriguing band who have released some quality music across the albums Light and Death (2017), Spotted Horse (2019), and Twin Dream (2021). They’ve always shown that they are not one to be musically pigeonholed, as they convey a wide range of sounds from Post Metal to Hardcore, Sludge to Black Metal while often breaking up the chaos with moments of drone atmospherics. Continue reading