Human Error
Life Sentence
7.5
First things first, Life Sentence is not a metal album in any real sense of the word; if this bothers you in any particular way, get the fuck over it. Human Error plays a style of crust that utilizes a wide variety of elements from an expansive background of influences as varied as traditional grindcore, old school hardcore, to the heavy influence of bands along the lines of Doom or Discharge that really paved the way for this sort of thing to follow. Frankly speaking, that’s really about where the contact with the metal world at large ends, but this doesn’t in any way detract from Life Sentence being a truly aggressive and refreshingly exciting release.
Human Error have been a large part of the DIY punk community in Budapest since the late 90’s, and it shows. This is reflected quite spectacularly in their ability to write a damn good song, yet more importantly, to actually offer an album than expands upon a genre that is arguably even more stagnant than death metal is nowadays. For those of you who may not know much about the genre as a whole, this isn’t grindcore proper (in the usual sense used to describe bands like Terrorizer), nor is it even primarily grindcore with emphatic punk leanings along the lines of Phobia or Skitsystem, the style presented on Life Sentence is very much in the vein of older Cripple Bastards: a multifarious melee of crust punk with a distinctive grindcore edge to it, nothing more and nothing less.
All seventeen songs are ferocious, to-the-point bursts of violence and aggression that rather than descending into a wall of half-rate noise, consistently keeps up an alarmingly professional demeanor. The level of variety and energy is kept at a constant high throughout each song with a very experienced use of contrast between catchy two steps and the quintessential d-beats and the more grindcore oriented blasts. One of the things you have to keep in mind with nearly every genre of grindcore, especially the more hardcore punk oriented material, is that it isn’t exactly an overly complicated form of music. Some of you may just think I'm making excuses for sub-par musicianship, but then again you don’t really fault a Picasso for being too abstract, as to do so would be to miss the point entirely. I could sit here and wade through a bunch of laborious descriptions and flowery language, but in this case I think that would be a disservice to both you and I. If you have any affiliation with hardcore punk, this one should be right up your alley, I promise
