The Pitch: Delaware metallic hardcore crew Year Of The Knife go scorched earth with new album Internal Incarceration via Pure Noise Records. FFO: End, Vein, Jesus Piece
What I Like: It's gotten to the point over the years that if I see Converge's Kurt Ballou on an album's recording credits, there's really no good reason to pass it over. Everything the man touches seems to turn to gold, and once more we've struck paydirt with Internal Incarceration. This album is 35 minutes of unrelenting, unhinged odes to the addiction and loss that run rampant in a community hit extra hard by the opioid epidemic. You can practically taste the grief emitting from your headphones, personified by crunchy HM2 pedals and fierce D-beats. The vocals, though certainly as violent as the likes of Vein and Jesus Piece, also have this harrowing sense of despair and disillusionment. I’m picturing these songs performed at a funeral, the singer perched like some feral animal on the coffin. And damn do these riffs kill. Frequently crossing the line from hardcore into pure metal, the opening hook on the title track could easily be an outtake from Slipknot’s Iowa
Critiques: I feel like there are a lot of similarities between this and End's Splinter's From An Ever-Changing Face, and when faced with that almost unfair level of competition, Year Of The Knife fall just a hair short. But hey, there's always room for both .
The Verdict: At the end of the day you can have all of the talent and technical knowhow in the world as a metal musician, but none of that means shit if there isn’t some sense of urgency behind it. I’m thankful for bands like Year Of The Knife who are willing to put it all on the line amidst the wailing feedback.
Flight's Fav's: Manipulation Artist, Internal Incarceration, Get It Out
- Review by FlightOfIcarus
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