Reviews

'Sometimes, standing for what you believe means standing alone!'. I'll get back to that lyric a bit later, but what I love here at TheBigBlackMachine HQ is that we are accepting of each other's oddities in some of the metal music we like to listen to. To be honest Hatebreed are an outlier for me. I usually walk the other way when the word 'Hardcore', or 'Metalcore' is mentioned. What draws me in is the absolute fact the Jamey Jasta is at the top of the list of vocalists that can bring the necessary brutality to this type of music. His vocal tone is dead spot on. He holds it back at points in tracks where you just sit there and support the music, but then throws up both arms when he tells the band to 'hold back and let me take this to the next level'. Which leads me back to the lyric I mentioned above, which is in Track 2. Take a listen and you will know exactly what I mean. Now unless you are in a 'smoke em if you got em' space right now, this an brutal wall-bashing for anyone. 37 minutes I think is enough for anyone who cares to take a listen to get their blood pressure up and ready for remaining tracks after the initial assault on your ears. Jasta's continuous call to arms in most tracks leave you wanting to take up the cause. In all honesty, and to reiterate earlier comments, this is not necessarily hard music to make - but these guys are at the top of their genre for how they blend the music with Jasta. It's not your dumb song where you see a band full of musicians that think they are the shit and just bash a heap of shit together, then have a vocalist who thinks he is God and just yells the best he can for the fuck of it. Again, I can't reiterate enough with this band how the music and the vocals can completely support each other to make it a really enjoyable listen. No band does it better than Hatebreed in the Hardcore or Metalcore scene.