This is slightly heavy old school hardcore from Belgium with straight yelling vocals. It's pretty typical... simple song structures and basic chord progressions, some slower breaks with that extra bit of heaviness, lots of gang vocal shouts, a little bit of melody, etc. There's really not a lot of variety at all, in fact most of the songs sound more than a little similar to one another across the board, but with each track running less than three minutes, most under two, things keep moving along without getting too stale. The vocals are a little bit loud, but other than that the recording is nice. The drums are okay, they could use more warmth, but the bass presence helps beef up the rather thin guitar tone, and the mix is clear. I'd add some density to the drums and kick in more distortion on the guitars, then drop the vocals back, and that should make everything more centered and close up the gaps. I like the look of the layout. I can't really tell what the hell the images on the front/back covers are (I guess the front is part of a face with a bloody nose/mouth), but it looks sort of cool. Inside, the pages are filled with large handwriting and scribble and the lyrics run along the bottoms of the pages in plain type. Lyrically things revolve around personal issues and the hardships of life, making excessive use of the word "fuck" to drive home the point that these guys are pissed off. "...sometimes it all comes crashing down. The empty days. The lonely nights. The dead end streets (fuck this life). What's the fucking point? Sugar coated words and plastic smiles they're all around and it fucking makes me sick. I'll spit out words but I know you'll never understand. You could never understand. Fuck you all. I'm fucking gone." This is good for what it is, it's just not really interesting or memorable enough to really stand out from the rest of the genre just yet. Maybe next time.
[Sobermind]
Running time - 12:24, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: Save Forever, Clean Slates]
Sobermind Records - http://www.sobermindrex.com
