John Hult
This week, I decided to take the road less traveled by. I’m going to give a bad review. This is generally regarded as irresponsible and cruel because there is always someone who feels that a bad review colors you ignorant as a critic. And they are usually right. Even the most detestable drivel ought to at least be given an e for effort.
But to heck with convention and proper journalism, at least this week. The album I want to bash comes from a band called Hatebreed, after all. They love to hate stuff. Maybe they can hate my stuff. I’ll inspire them and help their career along, right?
Anyway, this week I listened to the New Haven, Conn. hardcore outfit’s new album and major-label debut “Perseverance.” I realized that while my disgust grew into a powerful living force and began to bubble out of the cracks in my CD player, that this album released to the public today was easily the most deserving of my critical scruples than any other I’ve encountered while working for your SDSU Collegian. So happy-go-lucky lovemongers stop right here.
This cro-magnon looking crew of hardcore straightedge goons who wear black like a uniform have put together an album that is truly a painful experience. Pressing the play button seemed innocent enough at first, but I soon realized that the gesture was to become an act of self-torture so intense that it was to become a religious experience to live through. But I did it. And I did it for you.
Hatebreed, you see, hates everything. They want to tear down the deceptive, destructive “system” like any respectable group of bald, brooding metal rockers. Their attitudes and ideologies are even quite clear and complete, so I suppose they have that going for them. But they have tunnel vision.
The group also deserves a bit of credit for their music’s strict adherence to the pinhole straightedge ideology the lyrics present. The result is a self-righteous pile of bland, repetitive, humorless garbage.
Within the first two songs, Sean Martin and Lou “Boulder” Richards have pounded every cliched hardcore trick out of their guitars. There is the “march to war” stomp, the stop and pound breakdown, the back and forth swing stomp riff, the jump up and down riff they’ve got it all. Drummer Matt Byrne plays the part of the prototypical hardcore drummer with too many cymbals to eardrum-piercing perfection. Bassist Chris Beattie plays the same notes as the guitarists with no creative input to insure that the metal assault rolls like a tank unimpeded by the speedbumps of musicality. And Jamey Jasta can only sing, er, scream one note. The volume goes up and down, of course, but that’s about it.
There is nothing wrong with being a bland hardcore caricature per say. But the fact that Jasta is obviously not an idiot or obsessed with blood, Satan or cannibalism complicates the issue. This group has something to say. On the group’s website, www.hatebreed.com, Jasta reported that the only way he felt able to overcome his everyday struggles was through channeling his hatred into creative energies and using the music for a release. Still OK, right?
But here’s the problem: they are humorless straightedgers. It may be timely to explain the idea of straight edge at this point. The straight edge lifestyle doesn’t only mean no drink, no drugs, no sex, and no meat (in most cases) and no smoking. That’s just a spiritual commitment, which is cool. The thing that separates straightedge from, say, Buddhism, is the unwavering belief that those things are the destructers of all self-esteem and self-respect. There are no two ways about it, generally.
It is this sort of hateful, judgmental attitude that keeps “Perseverance” from becoming anything more than a mediocre, dogmatic war cry. Songs like “Hollow Ground,” where Jasta asks “Are you willing to fight to take your life back?” betray a shallowness that is only separable from traditional shallowness by language and labels. Just as a scientist’s faith that science will find the answers to life’s burning questions comes from the same place as the faith of a fundamentalist Christian, Hatebreed’s anti-everything stance lies in direct opposition to a materialistic, partyboy lifestyle and becomes just as simplistic and destructive by virtue of its strict contrariness.
They do have a lot to say. If you are struggling with drug addiction, songs like “Hollow Ground” and “Below The Bottom” could be very inspirational. And “We Still Fight” paints a dead-on picture of cause-a-week demonstrators. But the tedious, monotonous anger that saturates every cell of this album is just too much in the end.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t know? Call KSDJ at 688-KSDJ to sample some tunes from Hatebreed. Who knows, maybe you’ll take a step past Hatebreed and make up your own mind.
Nah. Just agree with me. It’s safer.
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