When New York City roars the music industry pays attention. Here is a band born and raised in a famous city of music that have grown over the past decade into a respectable sound in metal. Sworn Enemy blast our ears with a polished hardcore metal sound with their latest album The Beginning Of The End and make their presence felt in the metal archives.
After jamming around thrashy, intense, hardcore riffs Sworn Enemy vocalist Sal LoCoco says they found the tone to the new age of metal. If energy and power are key elements to that, then The Beginning Of The End is certainly a building block to the new metal sound that comes fast. The album had to have an impressive start that would signify the new style of music for the band and it does just that with the furious and aggressive Forgotten. The solos set the pace and the hardcore screaming fills the air with energy that is inhaled and goes straight to pump up your veins for what is following. There are plenty of fast ferocious riffs in almost every track and overall there is great beat with great guitar work by Lorenzo Antonucci that massively contributes to the depth of the sound.
The highlight of The Beginning Of The End is certainly the Save Your Breath and No Second Chances, with the first being the heaviest track on the album and bringing the sound closer to Slayer than ever before and the second relates back to some of Sworn Enemy's older material with raw and bloody metal chunks. Another new idea for the band in The Beginning Of The End is the background vocals that no longer resemble gut splattering but they actually add weight to the end result, showing that the band's sound is now more mature than ever. And polished as well with the aid of As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis as producer and the with the mix of Zeus (The Red Cord, Shadows Fall). The weakest link seems to be the track We Hate, which may still be heavy but lacks so much lyrics wise that ends up on the verge between silly and funny.
Sworn Enemy have stepped up a gear with The Beginning Of The End and this time I would definitely recommend it for the fans of hardcore metal that sometimes feel they need a proper New York shout every now and then!