Pulling Teeth: Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions
In the end, Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions comes across as sort of extreme music opera where songs are movements and parts rather than isolated performances.
hardcore
Between The Buried And Me: The Great Misdirect
Like some terrifying amoeba, Between The Buried And Me has absorbed and incorporated a wild variety of sounds into themselves and spat back something that exhibits them all, but only uses them as ingredients to work toward their own ends.
Bastard Child Death Cult: Year Zero
Year Zero really does live up to its name; it plays like a brand new band insofar as not playing it even a little bit safe at any point during the album – everyone just goes for broke.
Converge: Axe To Fall
It took nineteen years but, in the opening guitar slashes of “Dark Horse,” listeners can almost hear the bandmembers collectively growl and then proceed to smash everyone listening over the head with thirteen of the strongest tracks this band has ever recorded; none of which fall into easy classification because Converge plays them all their own way, by their own rules.
Merauder: God Is I
Brooklyn, NY’s Merauder bring forth God Is I, a hardcore album that is not too extravagant or chaotic. With strong musicianship and relevant lyrics, the band still manages to produce something solid.
Hatebreed: Interview With Jamey Jasta
He was the host of Headbangers Ball, he owns a few businesses, and he’s in two successful touring bands. On face value, one might think Jamey Jasta would have little to complain about, and even less angst to vent through hardcore music. But such criticism loses grounding when taking into consideration that he’s “turning negatives into positives,” as he puts it, by attempting to transfer difficult childhood experience, as well as recent tragedy, into song. Calling from Pittsburgh on the second-to-last night of the Decimation of the Nation tour (featuring Chimaira, Winds of Plague, Dying Fetus and Toxic Holocaust), Jamey shoots the shit with Hellbound’s Jay H. Gorania about Hatebreed’s new, self-titled release—easily the most diverse and dynamic output of the band’s career.
Metal Blade Records: 25th Anniversary DVD
Filmed live at the Palladium in Worchester MA in April of 2007, this historic DVD document is a great snapshot of stalwart US indie label Metal Blade’s then-current roster.
Hatebreed: For The Lions
For The Lions slams out 18 tracks of covers that Hatebreed consider influential to their form of music. There are some obvious hardcore selections that won’t come as a surprise to most. Bands like Sick Of It All, Madball, Black Flag, Agnostic Front and Cro Mags are staples of the scene . It’s some of the left field choices that really
make this album interesting.