Stand & Fight "Together We Win" CD
[Bridge Nine]
Hot fucking damn! Here's the debut full-length from this stridently straightedge band featuring former members of the mighty Ten Yard Fight and Carry On, among others. It's no secret that I'm a sucker for straightedge bands that play straight up hardcore, and this is good shit right here. Definitely more powerful than their prior material. It's still old school styled hardcore with no frills, but the songs are often a touch longer here (still averaging two minutes or less), there's a hint more melody, and the recording is fucking awesome for this style. It's much heavier than their past work, which kicks ass because it gives more force to the music without any metal being involved at all. The bass is loud as hell and drives the core of the rhythm section, the drumming sounds fine, the guitars are chunky enough to pack a punch but really let the bass handle the low-end, and the vocal shouts are dead center in the mix. Great work. Writing wise the tempos are usually consistently fast, not too fast, with your usual breaks and a good number of gang backup vocals. "Conscious Effort" is more of a focused blast that hits on some early-80's hardcore as well as some unexpected melody, "Red Handed" starts out slow and then builds into a classic late-80's sounding youth crew track, "Back Off" is a 12-second blast, etc. As one would expect it's not a diverse effort per se, but it's got more going on than most such bands, and it's a progression for Stand & Fight as well, so the nuances make their mark. The layout keeps it simple with a minimal color scheme and clean, bold text, interspersing images of soldiers loading in and out of aircraft alongside live shots of the band. The lyrics deal with numerous topics and tend to have a positive slant, despite a healthy dose of anger, covering issues within the scene, perseverance, making it through tough times, etc. There are a few lines here and there with subtle references to straightedge themes, but despite the band's vocal stance on that, the lyrics don't push it but so heavily. "You say I should grow up and act my age, But I'll never be like you, you're a fucking disgrace, You've become everything that you once despised, Well listen up man, you can't outgrow pride, I don't fucking break." Good stuff. Anyone who was ever into this style of hardcore should be all over this shit. This band is already pretty hot, but I'd expect this record to throw them into a whole new league of massive finger-pointing sing-alongs, headstomping stagedives, and raging circle pits. A potential modern classic of straightedge hardcore. Get this. (8/10)
Running time - 20:03, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Together We Win, Conscious Effort, Stand Tall, Red Handed, Back Off]
Bridge Nine Records - http://www.bridge9.com

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