Decontrol "The Final War" CD
[Hardcore Holocaust]
Total Discharge worship from Canada. Only one song tops three minutes, and everything is simple and repetitive hardcore/punk with moderately paced chord progressions, lots of sloppy/noisy leads, basic drumbeats, stripped down vocal patterns delivered via gruff shouts, etc. The lyrics are borderline ridiculous in that almost every song is literally three lines: A verse, a chorus, and another verse; so they're kind of stripping down the whole Discharge thing as far as humanly possible. I like the dense rawness of the recording and the way it makes the guitars, bass, and vocals all fall right in line with one another, but the drums are a little loud for me, which is problematic because the drum patterns are so tediously simplistic. Truth be told this is a pretty boring take on this style, because almost every song sounds identical to the others, and the noisy leads pretty much suck, not to mention being overused, so... that gets annoying after a few tracks. "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is so straightforward it becomes almost catchy, "Government Made Wasteland" opens with some killer basslines that makes it jump out, and "Will the Living Envy the Dead?" seems a little more aggressive somehow, but aside from that there's very little that stands apart. The layout's also pretty minimal with some black and white art, band photos, and the lyrics. Lyrical content? "Hospitals littered with soon to be dead, Forsaken victims of a nuclear holocaust, Mass disease nowhere to bury corpses." Get the picture? I can listen to this, and there are some good songs, but when it comes to the whole D-beat thing this one definitely falls on the less memorable side of the fence. It's a little too one-sided and minimal for its own good. At least it's short and to the point, but... beyond something as concise as a 7" I'm not sure I could really appreciate a great deal from this band, it literally all sounds almost exactly the same. I don't ask for much in the vein of originality from these types of bands, but these guys might be taking the shtick a little too far. (5/10)
Running time - 18:21, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Weapons of Mass Destruction, Government Made Wasteland, Will the Living Envy the Dead?]
Hardcore Holocaust - http://www.hardcoreholocaust.com

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