(review) Pain Of Truth – Pain Of Truth

Pain Of Truth are hailing from Long Island, New York and were formed in 2020. This is their second full length album containing eleven songs. The music of Pain Of Truth is, what we called back in the nineties, new school hardcore. That means brutal metallic hardcore with street smart undertones. Here we have double bass pedals if I hear it right, angry shouted vocals which at times wander into a bit melodic parts and backing gang vocals, crushing beatdowns and breakdowns, just made for moshing at the gigs. Musicianship is very tight and production is raw and I love it, because it fits perfectly to this kind of music. This is not unsimilar to the godfathers of this hardcore genre, like Earth Crisis or Snapcase did, only more brutal and harsh, energy just streaming from songs on this release. Lyrics are personal, dealing with lies, trust, hatred, fear, personal demons and unfortunately or fortunately I can relate to them. This music and this record made me feeling better, so I can say that is the meaning of hardcore, to let you know that you are not alone in this. My personal favorites on this one are: Done For, Unforgiven and Destroy It All. As young hardcore kid, I didn’t like bands like this, because I come from more fast, punkrock background, but now at my fifties I enjoy them very much. Good one, pick this one!

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(review) Old Ruins – Mount Arreat

Old Ruins are hailing from Gelsenkirchen, Germany and they formed in 2019. This is their second full length opus. This one contains 8 songs. The music of Old Ruins can be describe as melodic black metal with some epic guitar melodies and hooks, tempo changes and I can also hear some post black metal parts and atmospheric parts in the song structures. In all, it is a beautiful opus for all of us who love their black metal melodic and aggressive at the same time. Vocals are varying from screaming black metal mainly, but also some clean vocals and spoken parts. The theme of the lyrics is Diablo video game haha. I never played that one, so I don’t know what is it about, but one thing is for certain is I love the music on this opus. I love blasting aggressiveness changing into melody of Gates Of Harrogath, almost mystical beauty of Once There Was Light and the title song which is my favorite on this opus. There are some slower doomy parts and atmospheric epic ones which fit perfectly into overall picture. If you like your black metal melodic, epic and with a dose of post black and doomy, you are the warrior for whom this opus was made. Check it out!

8,5/10

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(review) Axe Collector – Axe Collector (Human Future Records)

This one is out now for couple of months, but it doesn’t matter if the music is good and I want to present this one to the readers of my zine. Axe Collector are coming from San Diego, California and they are playing hardcore punk/powerviolence. There are nine songs on this beauty. Only one song is two minutes long, all the others are under. If you are familiar with powerviolence you’ll know what that means, fast drumming, blast beats, screaming and guttural vocals and raw guitar work. I can also hear some d-beat influences thrown in here and there, but maybe it’s only me. Lyrics are mostly personal with some of them being a bit social themes and you can read that between a few lines. I love such bands that play this kind of music but I can’t listen to them the whole day long, so this one is nice break from other music styles to check out. They kinda remind me of old now defunct Croatian band called Senata Fox, and they were awesome, so I also think that about this album. If you like powerviolence and hardcore punk, raw, fast and aggressive, go check out this beauty. Nice little record, indeed!

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