There comes a time in young music fans' lives when they put aside the flashy, lightweight records of their teens, come face to face with humanity's harsh realities, and pick new tunes appropriate to a more serious and realistic worldview. Anyone who feels that it's time to relegate such albums to the box under the bed would do well to start a new life-phase with a little Hatebreed.
On THE RISE OF BRUTALITY, the band lives up to the record's title, delivering a disc of astonishing purity and extreme volume. There is no rapping. There are no turntables and no power ballads. In fact, there is nothing here but a mind-numbing, ferocious, and totally unrelenting onslaught of drums, guitar, bass, and hoarse-voiced shouting. Unlike similar-sounding bands, though, Hatebreed never sounds less than totally impassioned, making for a uniformly thrilling listening experience. Taking its cues from socially aware 1980s hardcore like Sick of It All and Agnostic Front, the band combines positive messages with enough hyper-speed double-bass drumming and stop-on-a-dime rhythmic shifts to keep even the most sugar and testosterone-addled youth moshing until they reach retirement age.
01. Tear It Down 1:47
02. Straight To Your Face 2:17
03. Facing What Consumes You 3:29
04. Live For This 2:49
05. Doomsayer 3:22
06. Another Day, Another Vandetta 3:03
07. A Lesson Lived Is A Lesson Learned 2:03
08. Beholder Of Justice 2:44
09. This Is Now 3:36
10. Voice Of Contention 2:27
11. Choose Or Be Chosen 1:39
12. Confide In No One 2:38
UK Bonus Track
13. Bound To Violence 2:21
