New York hardcore legends Madball just dropped their new full length studio effort via Nuclear Blast. I listened to the new record and reviewed it for this webzine.

I saw Madball playing live at Punk Rock Holiday festival last Summer in Slovenia and they were awesome, true hardcore energy that could be felt around during their live set was immense and wicked. This record was marked by the absence of long time guitarist Mitts and in his place old time friend and once guitarist Matt Henderson recorded the guitars. Under Tue Madsen doing the mix and mastering and Tim Armstrong who joined forces with the singer Freddy Cricien productionwise, this record was bound to be great. The record contains 12 songs. Besides tried Madball classic sounding songs like “Smile Now Pay Later” or “Old Fashioned” there are couple of songs that stand out and make this album awesome. The first is “Rev Up”, a true hardcore anthem for 21st century with Freddy singing the melodic parts and sounding truely awesome. There are some guest appearances on the record and Ice-T adds coolness and charisma to “Evil Ways”. I love “Lone Wolf” because it is the song and lyrics that I can make the most relation to on this record. Tim Armstrong of Operation Ivy/Rancid fame co produced the record and adds guest vocals on “The Fog”. This is a full blooded punkrock song with some interesting breaks and guitar solo thrown in for good measure. Of course, there would be one song in Spanish, this time “Es Tu Vida” with heavy stomping breaks and hardcore streetwise vibe. “For You” is the most emotional song on this album and it brought tears to my eyes because I remembered my sister and all the other brothers and sisters from the scene no longer with us. For me this song is the best on this album and it makes me going strong and carry on after almost a quarter of century in this scene. The title track is a piece of hardcore history itself. This is a strong album, the material on this album is definitely one of the candidates for hardcore album of the year!

10/10

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