Hang The Bastard have put out a collection of every single riff that they have churned out over the last three years. Featuring all of the contributions from recently departed frontman Chris Barling this album covers their split with Brutality Will Prevail, the Raw Sorcery E.P, Hellfire Reign and the most recent self-titled E.P released on TDON.
For fans of the band this is a great way of getting all of these brilliant songs in one neat package and for new comers to the band this is the most comprehensive look at one of the best bands to rise above the surface from the booming UKHC scene at the moment.
More metal than some of their hardcore contemporaries but more hardcore than a lot of the metal bands the UK has got at the moment, Hang The Bastard straddle both these scenes with complete ease, comfortable in throwing down huge groove laden riffs straight into massive headbang-able breakdowns.
Being a kind of ‘best of’ album it seems invalid to try and give it any kind of review, as being a massive fan of the band I already know that these songs are great examples of all that has been good in the past few years of music. What is great about this record is listening to the way the band have developed and honed their sound into something that is truly unmistakable.
The finest point of this whole collection comes with the most recent release, the impressive Hang The Bastard E.P put out on TDON records, a punishing collection of riffs that needs to be listened to if you’ve ever shown an interest in Black Sabbath or anything heavier, the best work that Hang The Bastard have done thus far. Rivers Edge, Interplanetary Portals as well as a re-recorded version of The Year Is One all bring the mosh in a powerful way.
What I’m saying is, check this record out. You will not be disappointed.
There isn’t much more to say than this, pick it up and bang your head.
Check out my review of the new Brutality Will Prevail record Scatter The Ashes, soon to feature on SWNK.org. In the meantime, read it on here:
The new Brutality Will Prevail is the album that everyone knew this band could produce, plus a little bit more. Scatter The Ashes is 10 tracks of doomy, riff based, furiously intense and downright brilliant hardcore.
Following on from 2010’s Root Of All Evil L.P and 2011’s Sleep Paralysis E.P, Brutality Will Prevail have fused the two sounds they played with to create this current musical equation. There are the huge doom riffs from ROAE which are now laced with the creepy guitar licks of Sleep Paralysis and they sound bigger and better than before.
Opening track Life Lines comes in gently with a picked acoustic guitar and simple drum beat, not the in your face aggression you expect to hear from BWP, but as an opening track it does well to ease you into the next song. Sins Of Commitment quite simply, is one of the heaviest things that BWP have written as a band so far and it sets a frenetic pace that the rest of the album duly follows. THAT bass section that comes in around 1.35 owes a lot to bands such as Harms Way but the winding riff that follows is a trademark sound of BWP now.
Massive credit must be given to guitarists Nick and Ash who play out of their skin for the entire album, there are so many exciting hooks and riffs that you feel constantly bombarded. Scatter The Ashes is no one trick pony though and there are enough changes in pace and structure to keep every song interesting and to keep surprising you for 10 tracks. The riff at the end of Casket is made for people to absolutely destroy each other in mosh pits all over the world. Casket also features some of the most memorable lyrics on the whole album with the wonderfully worded line of “release my mind, body and soul, I wanna be the one who’s in control” just begging to be screamed back at Ajay wherever this is played live.
Instead of letting the pace slow down towards the middle of the record, 1348 blasts out of the speakers with perhaps some of the tightest and most aggressive music this band has written; the verse sounds like a power-violence band playing a Neurosis cover. Again at the end of the track, another riff built for people to mosh hard to, although personally I would like it to run for another 4 bars at least.
There is so much that can be said for the musicianship of BWP but what is so impressive on Scatter The Ashes is the performance of front man Ajay. Anyone who has seen the band play live will have been impressed by the live performance he always gives, the guy can control a crowd and run a set like no-one else, but on this record he steps upto the plate and becomes the complete package.
Fallen Apart in my opinion is Ajay at his absolute finest. His voice is so distinctive and charismatic and all of his best traits are laid over this track, coupled with a edgy, chug laden riff it is one of the highlights of this extremely impressive album. Fallen Apart feels like a deeply personal song, from the opening line of ‘Spent my time looking in the mirror, this old man will never change” to the furious “everything I touch turns to dust” to the mournful “when I’m left with nothing, nothing but myself, I think I realise, what its like to be, dead” it really feels as if heart and soul is being poured into the lyrics on this record.
Closing song Scatter The Ashes is sung entirely by guest vocalist Andrew Fisher of Basement and while the song is one of the best things on the album, I personally would have liked Ajay to have the final word on this record. It doesn’t matter as his job is done and the vocal from Fisher closes the album out in a way that you wouldn’t expect. Scatter The Ashes doesn’t go out with a bang instead it fades out into the darkness, but my god does it leave you wanting more.
This is by far the best thing Brutality Will Prevail have put out and it should be their slingshot into the realms of deserved success. If you listen to one thing this year, make it this album.
For anyone who hasn’t managed to pick up on this yet (if so, where have you been?) Brutality Will Prevail have set about whetting appetites ahead of their new release, Scatter The Ashes.
The band have released a video and free download of their newest song The Path. Despite the album not being ready to be released until November, the newest single has been released alongside a video which can be found here.
I recently sat down and chatted to BWP at Hevy Fest 2012 on behalf of Deadpress.co.uk – I chatted to Ajay and Nick about their thoughts regarding headlining the Redbull Stage at Hevy, their upcoming European and UK tour with Terror and what it was like to record a video.
Have a listen to the interview to get a full insight into those topics as well as other stuff the band have been up to.
Keep an eye out for my review of Scatter The Ashes when I finally get my hands on it.
If you don’t know of Purgatory Records by now then quite frankly you haven’t been paying any attention to the current UKHC scene. Hailing from South Wales and boasting bands such as Brutality Will Prevail, By My Hands, Broken Teeth, Frustration and More Than Life to name a few, Purgatory have been leading the game for a while now.
Yesterday the most recent crop of Purgatory releases dropped on the website – (www.purgatoryrecords.bigcartel.com) – they were the new Broken Teeth and Frustration E.Ps. Frustration have been holding the Dublin Hardcore Scene down for a while now and this new release is a massive step up in song writing and the track they’ve released so far is a 7 minute epic featuring guest vocals from Ajay of BWP.
The other track that dropped is the new song by Manchester Hardcore stalwarts, Broken Teeth. As usual they have put out a song that takes a 90s hardcore vibe and updates it to bring a modern mosh. If the rest of the E.P goes as hard as this it will be one to match The Seeker.
When I get my hands on these releases I will be getting reviews of both up on here so keep your eyes peeled.
Even though we are now heading rapidly towards the depth of winter, the Summer still lingers in the back of my mind and it was a great Summer with some amazing times.
In my previous blog post I wrote about the interviews I did at Hevy Fest and until recently I hadn’t thought about them. I stumbled across these on the NME website the other day, and asides from being confused as to why they were being hosted on there, I thought it was pretty cool and felt pretty honoured.
I interviewed Crossbreaker, Brutality Will Prevail, Jeremy from Touche Amore and Sam from Architects which topped off an amazing weekend so I thought I’d post them on here if anyone would be interested.
Give me some feedback, always appreciated, although go easy, these were the first ones I’d ever done and I was beyond nervous!
This isn’t a review or anything more than trying to explain this fest off the top of my head with a few rants thrown in for good measure.
For a start, Hevy Fest suffered from pretty poor organisation. Don’t get me wrong, everything ran smoothly once you were inside but that was just it, getting inside was something of a pain. Fortunately I was lucky to have a press pass for the entire weekend which enabled me to get in by cutting out the queue. My friends weren’t so lucky and ended up waiting for 3 and a half hours to get in. This is a bit of a joke when you consider the size of the festival, I mean I only waited three hours to get into Reading last year and that’s like 80,000 people. They also missed Crossbreaker because of the queue, bummer, they ruled.
Once inside the campsite was quite nice, surprisingly there was enough room but there was hardly enough toilets for the population which was ever so slightly grim come Saturday morning.
Enough moaning about that anyway. This weekend was all about the crew. Myself, Tom, Ben, Damon, Tilt and Sam set about having as much fun as possible whilst moaning as much as we could about the fashion scene, sorry i meant Hardcore scene present at Hevy. I am now going to sound like a complete dick for moaning about this but the whole fashionable nature of hardcore is something that I don’t really get. Everyone there kind of looked the same, us included I guess, but hey, this scene is popular so I guess that’s the end result. As long as the bands keep making awesome music that is all that matters.
And my god were the bands awesome. I was working on the Saturday interviewing bands so I missed bits of some sets, but I got to see the majority of the bands I wanted to see which was awesome. I interviewed some awesome guys as well, Crossbreaker, Sam from Architects, Brutality Will Prevail and Fabian from Polar were all absolutely stellar guys and interviewing Jeremy from Touche Amore sat under a tree in the sun was mind blowing!
In terms of sets of the weekend my top bands in no order would have to be Brutality Will Prevail on the Etnies Tent:
Touche Amore on the Macbeth tent:
Hang The Bastard providing the riff worship on Sunday morning, Bastions on both days making everyone seem invalid, Ceremony for inciting pure violence, Crossbreaker for showing that South Wales is on top, The Bronx for being The Bronx. Dillinger Escape Plan for making every other band look like they couldn’t play their instruments properly and Defeater for nearly making everyone cry.
Unfortunately the sound quality kind of killed it for a couple of bands. Architects didn’t sound half as good as they should have and Your Demise didn’t have any guitar from where I was stood, which sucked so hard as I was massively stoked to see those guys play again.
There was some cool merch sprinkled in between the fucking trendy bollocks. Fuck Honour Over Glory and Drop Dead when there is a Holy Roar Merch Tent. Picked myself up the Eisberg 7″ (CHECK IT OUT) the Kerouac Cold and Distant, Not Loving 10″ (CHECK IT OUT) and Hellfire Reign by Hang The Bastard (CHECK.IT.OUT) as well as snapping up a Holy Roar vest. Massive shout out to those guys for keeping it real with real prices and amazing merchandise. Seriously Drop Dead, £25 for a tee, fuck that.
The drive back to Cheltenham going through central London at midnight was pretty cool and was completely hassle free, unlike what is happening at the moment.
This weekend was awesome for the sweet hangs I got to have with some awesome people. Posi-Moshing was the highlight (You have great teeth) and just having fun and not taking it seriously was awesome. Anyone who saw us lunging around in short shorts in the pissing rain would totally agree with this.
Next year I think the plan is to venture across the channel to sample some Euro mosh which would be awesome, can’t wait to see if we pull that one off!
In the mean time, stay-posi and listen to SLAYZOR.
I just read that the new BWP record will ship out at the end of the week and I cant wait to finally hear it.
After hearing Heavy Eyes for the first time on their Facebook page a month or so ago I was blown away at the sound the band had produced. It wasn’t a massive deviation from what they have put out before, doomy, menacing and fucking heavy but the production was more impressive and the music was even more impressive.
The new record is only three tracks long but will clock in at 20 minutes, its going to be one hell of a dense listen!
At the recent Rumble III even in London (which I was gutted to have missed) BWP played Heavy Eyes, and although the audio-quality isn’t brilliant this video totally gets across how heavy the song is.
When this record comes out I will write up a review for it and get it posted on here as soon as possible.
Check out the video and then get on their Facebook and listen to other stuff.
The New Beat 