Think I CareThese guys from Winchendon, MA have been at since 1999, during that time they have released an EP on Walk All Night Records (Mongrel) and full length on Manic Ride Records (S/T) and of course they appeared on a few compilations here and there throughout the years.
Although the style these guys are playing is a pretty standard brand of hardcore, well for the most part that is. You can tell they were inspired by the 80's Boston stuff but they tastefully mix in influences of the legendary Celtic Frost, Obituary and Cro-Mags for a nice little metallic touch. For the most part these guys keep it in the mid tempo range with plenty of pulsing rhythms that allows Jason the front man to unleash his disdain for everything wrong with the world around him: the blue collar blues of growing up in a small industrial town that got shut down because of recessions. The lyrics are written in basic structure so that most can make their own connection to the lyrics.
The songs on this 10 song full length are short and sweet, averaging from 1:45 to 2:30 minutes but give you enough time to get into the track The opening track, which is also the title track of album opens up with a nice intro that makes use of some nice feedback that breaks into a pounding verse. The breakdown in the song is easily one of the strongest on the album. The next track, "Chains" has a really cool verse that transitions nicely into a nice stomp'y chorus section. From there thing get a little boring but things really start to pick up again during the middle section of the album, which also happens to be the strongest part of the album. My two favorites being track 5 "Nature of the Beast" and track 6 "Reality's Nightmare". Capping off the album is the instrumental "Survival Machine" which you can tell is heavily influenced by the Cro-Mags and was a damn good way of closing this one off.
The album was recorded by Dean at Atomic Studios. It sounded decent but I'm kind of torn. At times the dry and raw recording gets it done for me but at other times it gets a little too rigid sounding. The guitar tone is okay but gets a little flat, luckily the bass fills up the space. I really liked the sound of the vocals in the mix, no problems there but the drums were hit and miss again. In this instance the echo was too much for me and they sounded to thin, although in "Chains" they sounded more effective.
The layout fits into the theme of the record perfectly. The front cover image is of a city that is completely ravaged with what appears to be either a hellish sky or some crazy hell hole pulling in the ruins of the city. The album title almost looks like it was actually stenciled on with black spray paint, nice. The inside of the booklet houses all of the lyrics to the songs displayed in plain white text over a contrast of the front cover and what looks like red rock. The book of the cover is a nice live shot of kids piling on for a sing along. Nothing overly eye-catching but appeasing for the eyes nonetheless.
Rating: 3/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: Nature Of The Beast and Reality's Nightmare
Thesis: These guys do a good job of mixing just the right amount of traditional hardcore with some metallic touches that gives it some character. The biggest problem I had other than some recording qualities, that might even grow on me in time was the structure of the songs seemed too similar from track to track. Aside from that this is a damn good record.