Alove For Enemies
The Harvest
4.9
Christian and religious hardcore is really nothing new, although it seems reviewing such bands on this site is creating controversy. Christian hardcore bands like No Innocent Victim and many others on Facedown Records have been around for a while, and even Hare Krishna bands such as Shelter and 108 aren’t unheard of. To me, it is just a bunch of kids who feel strongly about something expressing their feelings through strong music. I think the problem is now that so many hardcore bands like Alove for Enemies are more metal and less punk, it can be a bit of a shocker hearing such brutal music speak of Christianity in a positive manner.
This being my first time hearing Alove for Enemies, I was expecting something a bit more toughguy from a band that labels themselves as ‘NYHC’. The Harvest opens with an electronic intro track, which let me know I was in for something a little more artistic than blatant breakdown after breakdown toughguy hardcore. Alove do play very heavy hardcore reminiscent of XDiscipleX A.D. with all that good dancefloor stuff, but have a very emotional undertone and emo-ish moments in their music as well.
The problem with The Harvest is the redundancy of the songs and just plain lack of originality, which holds the band back. A lot of their more melodic moments sound the same from song to song, with overuse of the preachy hardcore talking voice. After about the fourth track everything starts to sound redundant, as the band rehashes what we’ve already heard and each song seems to follow the same kind of formula. The monotony makes me hard to feel anything but bored.
Perhaps in a live setting I may feel differently, however. The band’s strongest music is during the very gut-wrenching breakdowns, tribal-drumming dancefloor parts and singalongs, guaranteed to create a lot of energy in a small club - especially one filled with high-strung straightedgers passionate about Christ. The band refers to Jesus Christ a lot in their music making the lyrics very much geared towards a Christian audience, who may find a bit more to their liking on The Harvest.
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Alove For EnemiesResistance
7/11/2006