xDEATHSTARx
We Are The Threat
6.9
Synopsis:
When four vocalists are not enough for your hardcore band, improve your songwriting…
Review:
Straight edge hardcore gang xDeathstarx return with the more developed and better produced follow up to The Triumph, and while not quite the shift that say Throwdown or A Perfect Murder have made into a more metal realm, the result is similar and importantly, far improved.
First, We Are The Threat rumbles and chugs with the weight and heft you’d expect from a straight edge, hardcore assault and is thick with the multi-voiced shouts of unity, anger, blah, blah. Second, a very slight shift towards metal rises in the form of some rather enjoyable clean, almost power metal choruses-like a more ‘intellectual’ form of gang chant. Don’t get me wrong, a majority of the songs are either (or a mix of) juiced up and thrashy, power chord filled jaunts (“Where’s Your Faith Now”, “The Wake”) and super burly, teeth rattling breakdowns (“Burn Everything”, Decline of the Western Civilization”, “Through Dead Eyes”, “City of Lost Children”, the truly crushing “Salvation”), but in tracks like “We Are the Threat”, the Built Upon Frustration-ish “Because the Flesh is Weak”, “The Great Opiate” with its very effective, catchy chorus,“Fallen Sons” and the last moments of "Salvation", the mood is tangibly less hardcore so to speak.
The end result is seemingly more mature, ‘deeper’ and less clichéd hardcore that seems to want to be more than the usual fare, and it succeeds somewhat. Of course the numerous and somewhat extraneous vocalists cover the expected angry screams and roars, the message is still the usual straight edge mantras and the clean vocals merely tease the listener into the band's slightly incomplete transition into something more than a mere hardcore band.
Still, the end result ends up being an above average hardcore album that shows a band willing to take a bit of a chance while still staying loyal to their slightly tired roots.
Related
xDEATHSTARxThe Triumph
7/13/2004