Jesus Wept
Show's Over
6.9
I purposely signed up for this Christian hardcore band’s debut album because I didn’t care for their derivative EP, Sick City and I was hoping to shed me Christian metal lover tag with some creative religious and musical put downs..
Wrong. Show’s Over is a catchy, sometimes heavy and well written slab of solid if generic hardcore.
Somewhere between Sick City and Show’s Over, Jesus Wept found some song writing skills that meld typically chuggy, gruff tough guy hardcore (“Dedicated”, “Nine”), old school East coat punk based hardcore ala Sick of it All/Agnostic Front (“Break Me”, “Against the Grain”), metallic angry hardcore (“Human Wasteland”, “OMG”) and a couple if tracks that mix it all together in surprisingly memorable anthems of metallic furor and religious conviction (“Blackout”, “Broken Crown”). The last 2 tracks, “The Final Word” and “Dear Brothers” end the album with a more somber but still rousing, stout tone that highlights the bands religious lean, but without being to sickeningly preachy, but rather positive and unifying. .
The end result is an album that does hardcore right in all its modern forms and has enough old school vibe to make it have a wide appeal. I get plenty of tough guy hardcore to review, but rarely does it rise above macho bullshit and more listenable levels due to actual songs wrapped around the contrived breakdowns and imagery, Jesus Wept accomplish this task with a level of surprisingly success that has given this album far more airplay than alot of the other contrived hardcore crap I get.
Well done fellas-the big guy would be proud.
