Stick to Your Guns -- 'Comes From the Heart' [review]

Stick to Your Guns - Comes From the Heart
Century Media (5/13/08)
Hardcore / Metal

There's a time and place for everything. But sometimes, at some point, the "get in, kick ass, get out" approach becomes a cliché. And that was the obvious aim Stick to Your Guns was taking with Comes From the Heart (the album's ten tracks clock in at under a half-hour). So, let's consider that strike one.

Then there's the hardcore scene in general. Unless you're taking the brutal, old-school approach (take a listen to last year's Warriors album for a good example of this), or shifting toward the metal end of the spectrum (Hatebreed isn't reinventing the wheel every outing, but you can't dismiss any album that the band has released), you're pretty much stuck. Hell, Remembering Never was singing about beating a dead horse back in 2004. So for a band to try carrying that "core" movement, made famous by the likes of Atreyu or maybe From Autumn to Ashes (and I'm talking back around '01 or '02 here), it's unclear whether we're supposed to respect Stick to Your Guns for carrying the banner, or shake our heads for the group ... well, beating a dead horse. So there's strike two.

If it wasn't already clear, Stick to Your Guns has a fairly formulaic approach to its music. There are hardcore breakdowns, attacking riffs and this positive (albeit brutal) element to the music. The vocals oscillate between the typical hardcore howl and clean, sometimes melodic, singing.

But don't get me wrong; it's not all boring. "Tonight's Entertainment" is a nice little brutal slab of hardcore, while the drumming on "Driving Force" is pretty impressive, and there's some pretty good rhythm guitar work on there, too. And there are some nice solos sprinkled about the album, especially on "We Must Look Like Ants From Up There". And to throw listeners for a loop, there's "Interlude", which basically consists of sampling and acoustic work in a very laid-back, mellow vein. It's entirely out of place on the album, and doesn't really work, as a result; but it's a nice try nonetheless.

Comes From the Heart is a little too short, and not the most original album out there, but Stick to Your Guns doesn't do a terrible job producing this type of music. Not fantastic, and not horrendous, this album is just sort of there, and listeners will either love it or hate it.

The Warriors -- 'Genuine Sense of Outrage' [review]

The Warriors - Genuine Sense of Outrage
Victory Records (8/7/07)
Hardcore


For any fans of the genre, The Warriors are offering up pure hardcore bliss. Genuine Sense of Outrage is stripped of the metal influence or death-metal-esque vocals littering today's so-called "hardcore" landscape. Think Hatebreed circa 1997 (Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire) or Remembering Never (Women and Children Die First). In fact, the only slim deviations from the typical hardcore sound comes in moments on "The Stone Grinds" with the slight melodic surges in guitar or the pseudo-rap on "Mankind Screams" and "Life Grows Cold". Everything else is blatant and in-your-face hardcore.

This is a turgid album, as the band does a hell of a job packing as much sick hardcore into each song as possible (13 tracks clocking in at just over half an hour). The infectious title track, with the mosh-pit breakdown chant of "this is a genuine sense of outrage" joins the breakneck drumming on "New Sun Rising", the out-of-leftfield mellower moments on "Silence is Bliss" and crisp, angry vocals that at times seem to channel Billy Graziadei of Biohazard. And unlike some other bands, The Warriors do a great job at varying up the songs and vocals enough to keep the tracks from blending together. Tracks like "Nothing Lasts" or "Odium Vice" are just as strong as opener "The Ruthless Sweep". To be honest, the first listen of this disc was done without a play list, and I assumed the band was getting ready to wrap up around "New Sun Rising" (the seventh track). Instead, it was only half done.

Everything has a sense of urgency; this album seems to have come out of nowhere and impresses completely. It'll be hard to ignore come year-end lists. But forget album-of-the-year shortlists. Songs like "Destroying Cenodoxus", "Nothing Lasts" and "Your Time Is Near" could easily fit on any best-of hardcore collection.

Genuine Sense of Outrage is The Warriors third album (though its first under the Victory label). The group's sound should appeal to a wide range of music fans -- there's just enough punk and metal influence in there, mixed with just the right amount of groove. And keep an ear open for a special vocal appearance from none other than Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister (a great performance, too).

In a year already full of notable metal releases, The Warriors shock us all and put out one of the strongest, most powerful hardcore album of the decade. Fans of the genre, or metal in general, will love this album. Everyone else could learn a thing or two...

Remembering Never -- 'Women and Children Die First' [review]

Remembering Never
"Women and Children Die First"
Ferret Records


"This bandwagon's on its last leg. How long will you beat this dead horse?"
-- From "serenading this dead horse"


Remembering Never apparently started off as a joke band, though you'd never guess it after listening to the band's latest offering, "Women and Children Die First."

After releasing "Suffocated My Words To You" in 2001, the band went through "severe line up changes" (according to the band's biography), signed with Ferret, and recorded "She Looks So Good In Red" the following year.

Polishing their sound with constant touring with the likes of hardcore staples such as Between the Buried and Me, Every Time I Die and Dead to Fall (amongst others), the band headed back into the studio and created "Women and Children Die First."

At one point, Remembering Never's sound strongly resembled that of Poison the Well, and many reviews point out similarities between the bands' lead singers, but on "Women and Children," the singing seems much more guttural and Remembering Never's melody is more intrinsically set within the heavy, hardcore style of the band. Also, the acoustic guitar sprinkled around "She Looks Good" is abandoned and forgotten here except for a particularly pointed moment during the bridge in the last track.

The disc opener, "for the love of fiction," really sets the stage for "Women and Children": driving guitars, crushing bass and thundering drumming tightly knit around lead singer Peter Kowalski's intense vocals -- sometimes screaming, sometimes lower, discreet and intentional and sometimes transitioning to wails of emotional.

Kowalski growling out "This is an exaggeration of your mortality" over a wailing lead guitar and accompanying thick rhythm and bass onslaught opens up "a grenade in mouth tragedy," and after the third track, "plotting a revolution in A minor," it becomes clear Remembering Never aren't going to let up.

"incisions" is one of the many perfect songs off the disc. From the opening sound of an old-fashioned camera developing (a sound you'll recall from the "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" movies), the song evolves from an eerie, hardcore attack to a hauntingly beautiful metal anthem, layer upon layer peeled back and exposed. Within the first 30 seconds of this four minute plus track, there's a bludgeoning guitar and bass intro, a hint of high pitched guitar noodling sliced up by the start/stop of the drums and the song as a whole; Kowalski initially growls out the lyrics before opening up his throat and letting loose with some insane singing. And that's all in the song's first 30 seconds?! The song continues its breakneck pace, steamrolling to a hault with the lead singer repeating "Die knowing you lived your life on you knees."

The disc's swan song of sorts: the closer "serenading this dead horse," a song encompassing the band's feelings about the downfall of the hardcore scene, the banner of which Remembering Never holds high. Within the disc's liner notes is a letter from Kowalski and the band discussing (in depth) the dilution of the hardcore scene due to trends, less-than-sincere bands and posers. "Now it all seems to be about cool hair and who has the bigger belt buckle," Kowalski writes.

"We've been working on this record since the day we got out of the studio for 'She looks...' and were extremely unhappy with it ... This record is to the memory of hardcore ... but most importantly this record is for you."

"dead horse" alone is a must-hear for any fan of the genre, a perfect hardcore song with all the elements that fans could easily pick out: the driving guitars and forced vocals, the thudding drumming and bass riffs, the more mellow bridges and vocal accompaniment, and smart lyrics: "Shed another tear as I stab you in the chest with pieces of your broken heart. Fuck your broken heart. Why can't you let this die?"

And the exclamation point to the disc is a hidden track: a completely blistering cover of Pantera's "Strength Beyond Strength," complete with Kowalski's dead-on screaming of "Stronger than all" at the song's conclusion with the great guitar riffs, repetitive and fading out.