Out Cold/Voorhees "split" CD
[Thorp]
Out Cold comes straight out of Boston unloading some fast and rugged hardcore/punk with blazing vocal screams and the occasional dirty guitar solo. Everything is quick and to the fuckin' point with no song reaching two minutes. Their recording is rough as fuck, but it totally works. The drums are natural and basic, the vocals and guitars are mixed well, the bass is audible in the distance, etc. The guitar tone borders on that razor sharp style of distortion, but it's definitely more controlled. All they really need to do is increase the low-end on the bass and crank that shit up to sound even better. The lyrics are short and deal with various day to day troubles. The message is sort of hurt by some forced rhyming that makes things a little bit less insightful, but whatever. "Do the head trip to fuck me up, Heart caved in, you fucked me up, I know it's terminal, Full of hate 'cause I'm high on love, It's so strange to be killed by love." Voorhees (England) plays similarly raw hardcore with equal amounts of speed, but there's less of a punk influence and things are heavier/more aggressive... The tracks are short as hell, usually just past one minute, and there's not a lot of variety, but they're definitely getting the job done in the pissed off department. I thought these guys broke up? Who knows? The production is pretty good for what it is. The bass tone plays a good role, the mix is even, etc. I could deal with a little bit less midrange to the guitars because it leaves things sounding a bit unbalanced, but it's not problematic. The songs here also contain relatively brief lyrical passages that blend the personal and the political (to a degree), with far more wit and intelligence. "Sick of me, sick of you, Treat our time like pay per view, Flick the switch, Turn on that plug-in smile, Overpowering, my rising bile, Sick of talk, sick and tired, What you want is what I'm not." The layout is pretty damn nice. Simple, but nice. The front cover has an illustration of a bloody car, and the back cover has a somewhat hilarious smiling father and son who have blood splattered all over them. The rest of the imagery is bright green with some skulls in the background and red/white text. It's nice and clean, and the colors stand out. This is a great split between two bands that complement each other perfectly. My only gripe here is that at about 14 minutes total this is entirely too short for a split CD! (7/10)
Running time - 13:48, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: I Decay, Alone, Crowd of One, By the Throat]
Thorp Records - http://www.thorprecords.com

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