To What End? "The Purpose Beyond" CD
[Crimes Against Humanity]
Not too shabby. Burly and melodic hardcore/punk from Sweden featuring current/ex-members of Bruce Banner, Wolfpack, Sunday Morning Einsteins, and then some. A core of relatively straightforward Swedish hardcore/crust with some of that dissonant His Hero is Gone/Tragedy stuff going on, fronted by male/female vocal yells and accented by a few more metallic riffs on occasion. "Sneak Preview" is a more openly melodic track, slower in tempo, and the vocals even lean towards a combination of singing and shouting at times, which sort of works nicely against the layers of guitars. "The Pressure is Gone" then takes that even further, slowing it down just a smidge more and kicking out some great discordant chords along with more of the singing/yelling - one of the two longest tracks herein by a good margin at more than four minutes. "Set Them Free" pans a lot of the dual guitar parts so the layering is more evident, and its driving tempo is really memorable as well. The songs are actually pretty damn catchy because of the way the vocalists layer and interact together, and those hints at singing are so uncommon for this genre that they really have a huge impact. The basic framework for the songs may be fairly traditional, but the end result is really original on some level, and I love that. The recording was handled by Mieszko from Nasum and this sounds better than his usual work. The bass tone is phenomenal and plays a huge role in the mix, the guitars are tight and heavy, the drums have a shitload of density, and the vocals are well placed barely out in front of the guitars. Very nice. The layout really looks different for this kind of stuff, using only red, white, and black with lots of tinted red images grabbed from TV screens covering all sorts of different subjects. I don't really like the font used for most of the text, and the way the tracklist is arranged makes it hard to tell the order of the songs, but oh well. The songs are a mix of the personal and the political, keeping things pretty blunt. "Self condemnation is my best friend, and ignition is my wife, Hatred is breeding, my mind is their home, My body is their tool, now I'm set to destroy." This is an awesome CD. Short but sweet, no weak tracks, lots of emotion... the best I've heard from this genre in a decent amount of time. Definitely get this one, I'm all over it. (8/10)
Running time - 27:51, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Love Me to Death, Sneak Preview, The Pressure is Gone, Set Them Free]
Crimes Against Humanity Records - http://www.cahrecords.com

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