Hatebreed have just blown up in popularity for the last couple of years.  Now they just finished their tenth anniversary tour in America, and a tour of Europe on the Persistence Tour with Agnostic Front.  This album goes back to the same type of themes as the last two records, rising up against the man and how hard life is, but isn't that what you expect from a Hardcore band?

This band really needs no introduction, so I will make this short and sweet.  They started out in New Heaven, Connecticut opening for some of the bigger bands that came to town such as Entombed and Slayer.  They recorded their album Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire in 1997 and did some touring.  Then in 2001 they got on Ozzfest after not releasing anything for 4 years, and thus their popularity blew up.  Next year they released Perseverance which sold a lot of albums and only helped their first album sell even more.  More touring ensued with all kinds of bands including Six Feet Under and Shadows Fall.  Then not taking much of a break releasing The Rise Of Brutality in 2003 and then of course more touring only headlining this time around, oh and Jamie became host of Headbanger's Ball.

As I said in the introduction Hatebreed use the same themes in their songs as the previous two efforts.  The songs on this record though show a little bit of a progression from the previous releases.  I bet you are thinking well how could a Hardcore band progress? I mean all it is playing really fast during the verse and then a breakdown during the chorus, well Hatebreed decided not to do that as much.  There are more time signatures changes which is always good and not as many songs with the basic song structure.  One such song is Beholder Of Justice.  Yes it has the breakdown that you expect, but it only has one and plus there a couple time signature changes.  There are also songs that are going to be obvious crowd favorites because they are so easy to sing along with such as This Is Now.  The chorus of this track is very easy to bark back at Jamie with the word now coming up quite a very times.  On the overall sound of the album, the drums pound friggin hard as hell and the guitars are brutal and crushing.  The vocals are as well a force to be reckoned with Jamie's signature bark, you know who it is after the first word.

Hatebreed have put forth a quality Hardcore effort here.  It is about as progressive as Hardcore can get.  Hatebreed are an outstanding live band so make sure you see them live.  Even if you don't think them on the album the music is just so crushing in concert. I encourage you to pick up the album and go to the show just watch out for those crazy Hardcore kids and their punching the floor dance.