Since the demise of Give Up The Ghost, hardcore has been pretty stagnant. Sure, the likes of, Head Wound City, The Locust, Blood Brothers etc. have all been flying the flag of the tight t-shirt, girls-jeans wearing screaming brigade, but I’ve always felt something is missing.
On the other end of the scale are the billions of “heavy breakdown, gruff vocal, gang chant, repeat, repeat, repeat’ hardcore-metal bands such as Throwdown and Hatebreed, plodding out the same riffs and breakdowns. Therefore, it’s easy to get disillusioned and give up on the genre all together. Thankfully, The Hope Conspiracy are back. Four years since the release of 2002’s “Endnote’ they return (accompanied by former GUTG guitarist Tim Cossar) with “Death Knows Your Name’.
I thought Some Girls were a fucking angry band, I really did. I thought they epitomized everything that is and essentially was hardcore. Although now, I’m not so sure. You see, Kevin Baker’s motley crew of hardcore noise-makers have become even more feral and barbaric than Wes Eisold’s bunch of Girls (and that’s saying something). “They Know Not….’ Introduces the album; quiet strumming guitars, that get progressively louder, before exploding into a tirade of pure fucking hostility, with Baker screaming:
“Guilty, they’re all guilty. Guilty fucking pigs!â€ÂÂ
Following from this outpouring of pure violence, The Hope Conspiracy bludgeon the listener into the ground like a man armed with a sledge hammer. Pounding away, crushing you down…down and dead. “Deadtown Nothing’ is a moshpit song waiting to happen, exploding like some neutron pipe bomb of fist in the air punishment. The throat shredding screams of “Death Knows Your Name†on “A Darkness In The Light’ is a chilling and horrific cacophony of things to come, as this album hurtles onwards, breaking down all sense of niceness and decorum. “Suicide Design’ is similar to being kicked repeatedly in the face, Baker’s voice reaching a rasping drawl of slurred aggression and spiteful hatred; complete with a chorus that most other hardcore bands would give all their “breakdowns’ and “mosh-breaks’ for.
This isn’t a pleasant album. It’s angry, it’s brimming and boiling over with such hateful intensity, it would probably make a Quaker kick seven shades of shit out of someone if they heard it. Now, I’m not a violent person, but sometimes it’s good to let go and listen to something that you can lose yourself in as you windmill around your room, crashing into things and generally acting with as little respectability as possible.
Expect to see “Death Knows Your Name’ in my top 10 at the end of the year. If you have any love for hardcore music, you should own this already, you big girl.
Band – The Hope Conspiracy
Album – Death Knows Your Name
Label – Deathwish Inc.
Sounds like – savage, barbaric hardcore punk
(Photo taken from bands Myspace account)
Links
‘Death Knows Your Name’ can be purchased from the Deathwish Inc. stores or Amazon.
Lizard Hips
Junior Vice President of Keep It Fast. In other news: I work in social media, talk about dinosaurs, run a book club and have amazing facial hair. I am also a male man who is still not dead.
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