NYHC nineties old school champions Shutdown are back with new release! This one contains five songs of old school fast and groovy hardcore like it was done in the nineties and my personal favorite on this one is ‘We Won’t Forget’ featuring guest performance by none other than Sick Of It All’s Craig Setari. This is all about old school. Fast drumming, hardcore anthems, shouted and screamed vocals, great lyrics and hardcore played from the heart for hardcore hearts out there. This one really made my skin crawl with goosebumps and hardcore heart beat faster with every song that I listened to on this one, wishing there are more. Who knows, perhaps there will be new full length album some time in the future. In the meantime, check this one out and I would love to witness this band play live, I am sure they are a blast!
German hardcore scene is alive and well, thriving with great bands and releases coming out every day. By A Storm were already featured with their single in this webzine, now is the time for their full length album to see the light of day. This one contains ten songs plus one re-recorded new version of previous song. By A Storm play old school hardcore which leans with both legs more into punk and street punk roots and some youth crew influenced hardcore, than in metalized modern hardcore which is popular nowadays. This is so evident in songs like ‘Modern Men’ or one of my favorites ‘We Carry On’. Vocals are screaming at the top of the lungs but somehow, sometimes evolving into great melodic parts where needed due to song writing. At times this band reminded me of Croatian hardcore legends Deafness By Noise. Between all hardcore harshness and speed, there are also street punk soulful melodic parts and sing along backing vocal parts just made to sing along. This record is a great piece of Euro core reminding me back in the days of all those bands on Lost&Found Records that I used to listen to when I was a hardcore kid growing up. Lyrically, By A Storm moves along typical hardcore themes, like dealing with life, friendships lost and gone, betrayal, hatred, loss and similar themes, the themes that drove me to hardcore many, many moons ago. Songs like ‘Too Late’, ‘Rebuild’ or the title song reminded me a lot why I love this music so much in the first place. This is one mean, lean fine old school hardcore record!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 