Pretty funky hardcore punk music to make you jump about like you’ve got a bomb shoved up your backside. The album is just full of energy, like a child on speed, this is the perfect album if you need to get the blood pumping and the adrenalin. The bad thing about this side effect is that if you’re sat in a dark room, with not enough room to move, then it will make you very fidgety, which is not what you want if you’re locked in a cupboard, for example, so this is not the album for you if those are your circumstances.
If you are, however, in a wide open space, and want to jump about, sweating on each other, maybe spilling alcoholic drinks, then there are few albums that would suit you better than this one.
The music has a nice consistency to is that causes it to flow nicely through the barrage of punky anger without it feeling like you’ve been blasted in the face with a water cannon. There’s also the fact that it feels very fun, it’s that halfway stage between rebellion and fun, where you’re still rebelling, but you’re being sensible about it.
I think you’d be hard pushed to find anyone under the age of thirty who couldn’t get some enjoyment from this album.
The only thing about the album, is that there’s not enough variety in the songs, because while I enjoy all the fun and excitement, I have very little stamina, and get tired very easily, but this album doesn’t give me any time to rest. It’s exhausting.
It really confuses me when I listen to an album that is very well performed and contains some very good music, but it just doesn’t inspire me.
Hardcore Punk is one of those genres that has a small margin between brilliant and very poor, and this album is very good, but it’s quite formulaic and I think it’s this that causes me to be less than excited about the album. Maybe it’s also because I’m lying in bed, at 10:50am and this isn’t the correct position to be listening to the album. I can imagine loving the album if I heard it performed live at a rock festival.
Another complaint about the album is the same complaint most people have about Formula 1 racing, that it kicks off at 200mph and goes round and round at that speed until the end and nothing much happens. This is true up to the tracks, ‘Bastard Waltz’ and ‘Sorceress’ which is like the pit-stop of the album. These tracks happen and suddenly there’s lots of excitement going on and people are racing all over the place and there’s lots of change and variety and fun.
After these two songs, it goes a bit bland again, until the last three songs, which again pick up and take us to the end of the album. This kind of trickery, to end the album on a high, tries to make us regard the album as better than it was and make up for the slightly uninspiring rest of the album. This trickery doesn’t work on me. I see through your lies.
This album is on par. It should have been at least a birdie.
Listen to this album: While angry.
Rating: 77%
Extracts from ‘Deathsmarch’, ‘Bastard’s Waltz’, ‘Sorceress’ and ‘Lucifer’s Rocking Chair’
