I couldn't tell you why, but I just haven't been keeping up with much of the "crustier" side of hardcore/punk at all recently, though Portland's Hellshock is among the few bands that can still rope me in pretty easily. Their second full-length, "Shadows of the Afterworld", was originally released on vinyl by Black Water Records back in 2005, and this CD pressing hit the streets in the latter chunk of last year from Crimes Against Humanity Records. I pretty much never listen to vinyl anymore (Go ahead, turn up your noses, see if I care!), so I actually hadn't heard any of this material prior to the CD hitting my mailbox, but as expected the eight tracks tear through loads of heavily UK-influenced chugging, midpaced, metallic hardcore/punk in a little over a half-hour. I'm picking up on some of the Bolt Thrower musical influences a little more often these days, there's not very much blatant, basic D-beat styled hardcore/punk at all (which is fine by me), and the general songwriting sensibilities still revolve around fucking killer riffs when all is said and done. The uses of atmospheric acoustic passages layered with slick leads and prominent, Amebix-esque bass runs (check out the start of "Fathom Unknown") are more melodic than ever now as well. Good stuff. The recording's still on the fairly well balanced side of "rugged", so that nothing's polished up, but things are also far from grating. There's a faint crispness to the guitar tone that gets accentuated during some of the solos, the percussion sounds pretty dry, etc. But for the most part there's a solid chug driving the core rhythms, and the mix is evenly distributed. I still wouldn't mind hearing these guys with one of those "bigger", more fluid types of sounds (like what Amebix had on "Monolith"), but I guess they're content with writing completely badass metal-based riffs, just as long as their sound doesn't get too metal or something. I don't know. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? I'm just saying... could you imagine what these guys' material might sound like with those "Monolith" production values? Pretty insane.
Comments
Shame about the rather sloppy blowdrier vocals on this, I was way more into the song before they kicked in.
2.14.2008 | By svein
Hellshock is great, but their Nor-cal counterparts, Stormcrow, are absolutely killing right now!. I don’t know if they have anything out on CD yet…
2.14.2008 | By batguano
To add to the Stormcrow recommendation and speaking of Bolt Thrower-influenced crust…the Stormcrow/Sanctum split kills, plus I think there’s a Sanctum LP/CD coming out on 20 Buck Spin in the near future.
2.14.2008 | By Grist
i’m kinda dissapointed with the new album. the production sounds like mud!seems to me the band is changing musical direction towards midpaced hardcore thing, which is a shame sincei really enjoyed their previous output, especially their demo which IMHO, kill their debut.
2.14.2008 | By adlianb