Tag Archives: Melodic Hardcore

Stick To Your Guns – Better Ash Than Dust

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Stick To Your Guns are back, baby! The Orange County-bred hardcore outfit returned to the studio for a 5 song EP and, boy, were they angry when they did. The opening track, the eponymous Better Ash Than Dust (Pure Noise Records), opens with the line “The fire burns…”, immediately setting the sentiment of the EP straight for the listener. Vocalist Jesse Barnett is not in agreement with society and he wants you to know he has had enough. The vitriolic screams are pleasantly intercut with more open, melodic, clean compositions.Continue reading →


Video: Wisdom In Chains – Violent Americans

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Pennsylvania hardcore veterans Wisdom In Chains have released a new video for their track ‘Violent Americans’. The track comes off of the bands 2015 album The God Rhythm (Fast Break!). You can watch the video at this link or below:

 

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Hiraeth – The World Ends With You

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You can find out a lot about a band simply from their name. Take Hiraeth for example: Hiraeth is a Welsh word which has no direct English translation. The University of Wales has described it as ‘homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the departed’, as well as a mixture of ‘longing, yearning and nostalgia’. With such a unique and interesting band name, it is clear from the beginning that there is something different about them. Their debut EP The World Ends With You is self-released, and they have recently finished their first UK tour with Black Polaris and wars.

Opening track ‘Words To Echo’ opens with a simplistic and distorted guitar riff, proving their melodic hardcore roots instantly. Lead vocalist Charlie Clayton demands your attention from the get go, using his harsh vocals to enhance the emotion-filled lyrics. ‘Barely Breathing’ kicks up the pace, proving that Hiraeth are not just a one trick pony. The song features William Alex Young from Clockwork, and their different vocal styles fuse together perfectly.

There is something almost reminiscent about Hiraeth: they are able to use all of the previously successful melodic hardcore techniques to a high standard. The World Ends With You is an easy EP to listen to, and if you like melodic hardcore then there is no reason why you would not enjoy this band. For a first EP it is impressive, however, it would be great to hear how their sound develops in time and find out what will make them stand out from the thousands of other bands on the UK underground scene at the moment.

 

7.0/10

JULIA CONOPO


Wisdom In Chains – The God Rhythm

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Six albums in, and Pennsylvania’s Wisdom In Chains have hit the gas once more on the sprightly The God Rhythm (Fast Break!), delivering a definitive statement of classy punky melodic Hardcore. All the expected elements are expertly delivered, from “Oh-o-oh-oh’s” to breakdowns, and pacy three chord strumming to emphatic tunes, all played out with a sense of invigoration of a band at ease in their own skin, and their place in the musical world.

With the term “hardcore punk” being bandied around since the early 80’s, there is an acceptance that this is a fairly conservative scene – experimentation and progressive elements aren’t particularly prevalent – and there is a recognition that various tropes and stylings should be present, with success coming to those who do it well, do it best, and who do it true. With that in mind, it is refreshing to see Wisdom In Chains mix things up. While not re-inventing the wheel, or adding a host of tech-shit or unnecessary divergences to their sound, the depth to write and include the brooding ‘Mathematics’ and a five – minute thoughtful sample led melodic instrumental (the title track) to break up the album shows the quality and musical ability inherent in the quintet.

Vocalist Mad Joe Black leads with throaty melodic shouts – possessing good enough cleans to carry enough of a tune, particularly on the Sick Of It All meets Misfits barreling of ‘Best Of Me’ – and menacing on ‘Skinhead Gang’, a track that scoots into a welcome bass-led breakdown. Wisdom In Chains show their chops with the uptempo open chord driving hardcore of shout-a-long ‘When We Were Young’ and it’s reminiscing of all-night BMXing, with the crossover thrash of ‘Fatherless’, the pure Hardcore of ‘Violent Americans’, and while punking out with the well-intentioned ‘Joey Ramone’.

In true HC style, The God Rhythm doesn’t hang around, 14 songs, 37 minutes, a whole host of exactly what you expect, sprinkled with some shrewd deviations on the normal theme. Sitting pretty much in the centre-ground of popular Hardcore, stylistically, suits Wisdom In Chains, they can throwdown, holler, groove, breakdown to their heart’s content, all while keeping on keeping on.

 

7.0/10

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STEVE TOVEY


I Am Heresy – Thy Will

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The term metalcore has been bastardized beyond the days when it applied to bands like Stampin’ Ground, who espoused the virtues of hardcore with a huge metal bent to now mean any band that combines shouting verses with clean choruses and/or with widdly leads (to show their love of metulz) and breakdowns (to be down wiv da kidz) as interchangeable as the slew of bands that play them. I Am Heresy, the brainchild of vocalist Nathan Gray (Boysetsfire) and featuring his son Simon Gray on guitars, belong in both camps: that which “metalcore” used to encompass, and parts of what it does now, equal parts metal, hardcore and a mix of melody and aggression and sound like what I always wanted Architects to sound like, but is the better for the fact that Architects don’t actually sound like this.

Thy Will (Century Media) kicks off with punchy and violent ‘Rahabh’, 3 minutes of what Slayer should have sounded like on Undisputed Attitude, before ‘Our Father’ punks out open chords in a Bring Me The Horizon fashion, moving into the more melodic ‘March Of Black Earth’ where Gray Sr opens up his clean vocals for the first time. ‘Destruction Anthems’ returns to the temple of Slayer, all Seasons In The Abyss being covered by Sick Of It All, ‘Thy Will II (Black Sun Omega)’ is a mix of As I Lay Dying and Killswitch Engage and tasteful mid-album break ‘Alarm’ would sit beautifully on an Ancient VVisdom release.

But at 13 tracks, they spread themselves too thinly with too many fillers for one record and their potential and sound isn’t fully realized throughout (for example ‘Blasphemy Incarnate’ is stock, ‘As We Break’ is all chorus and no song, the riffs of ‘Hinnom II’ close in on Avenged Sevenfold territory and serves as a weak closer). But make no bones, when this melodic metal/hardcore mesh works, it shows I Am Heresy are capable of creating some engaging music, at times aggressive, at others catchy and often both, with personal favourite ‘Seven Wolves And The Daughters of Apocalypse’ a nice summary of the whole.

 

7.5/10

I Am Heresy on Facebook

STEVE TOVEY