"Never judge a book by it's cover...". This is an age-old adage that our mother's teach us at the earliest of ages and a lesson that is repeated to us throughout the course of our lives. While this usually get's applied to not being judgmental when we first meet a person, the same hold's true to listening to new music for the first time. Unfortunately, in my case, I forgot this lesson. When I first hit play on "Ready To Row" from the Swiss hardcore group INSANITY, I judged them as just another, "dime a dozen", over the top hardcore group that copied the sound of the next group, and the group before them. With seemingly simplistic guitar riffs/chord progressions, and somewhat cheesy rap-rock lyrics that formed overly anthem-laden choruses, you will have to forgive me for the premature assumptions.

While yes, INSANITY does seem to mimic EMMURE, they bring some great, back to basic's thrash element's into the mix. Sound's confusing? The combination actually work's well and that is a credit to great musicianship. The anthem chorus' grow in intensity as the album progresses and eventually hit an early HATEBREED level. The guitar tones specifically could use a bit of down tuning or maybe just a bit more beef on their high end and less on the top, though I worry this would take away from the thrash feel they produce. As is, they work swimmingly with the high attack tempos of each track.

I wanted to hate this album from the very start. In fact, until the start of track three, I did. Fortunately, mama DID teach me to give things a chance, and after I did, I couldn't. I just couldn't. Hopefully, you had a good role model as well and you do the same. This is not a great album, but it certainly is not one I would hate to be stuck listening to on a two-hour road trip.<