More killer old school hardcore from Bridge Nine, and, of course... it's six songs in fucking eight minutes. Damn these short ass EP's, man! Give me at least 15 minutes of jams, you know!? None of these tracks hit two minutes, so it's just fast hardcore with pounding basslines, straightforward chord progressions, higher than average vocal yells that have a slightly more interesting sound to 'em, etc. It's not original or creative, but it's energetic, well recorded, and tightly performed, so fuck it. They write good songs, too. It's not just a blur of speed and shouting, there's more to it than that and you can grasp the individual songs. The production is better than most of this stuff that I've heard lately, too. The guitars are dense and clear without being too heavy or anything, the bass tone is fucking enormous and really jumps through to the core... it all sounds great. The disc comes in a nice digipack with a cool color scheme and nice textures over the imagery, as well as a booklet inside with the lyrics and all that jazz. As song titles like the perfectly pissed "Get Fucked" would suggest, the lyrics don't fuck around: "I pick it up and it falls apart, That's just my stupid luck, I'd end it all and not give a fuck, But I won't give in." There's a CD-Rom video included for one of the tracks, and believe it or not it's not live, it's professionally shot in color and has the band performing in a warehouse or something like that. It looks okay, but I hate seeing videos for old school styled hardcore bands. They always just look really awkward and it doesn't capture the energy at all, so it makes no sense and seems really alien to me. But, the six tracks are all good, so forget the video. The rest gets two thumbs up.
[Bridge Nine]
Running time - 8:13, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: And I Begin the Longest Year Ever, If You See My Friend Failure (Tell Her I Said Hello), Those Black and Blues Look So Good on You]
Bridge Nine Records - http://www.bridge9.com
