Smash Your Enemies 2:12
Kill An Addict 1:02
Under The Knife 1:33
Filth 1:42
Not One Truth 2:09
Severed 2:40
Puritan 3:07
Ok so here it goes. I have no idea how to review this record objectively so I am not going to try. This record was one of the greatest influences on my musical life. The production is terrible, but in all honesty it makes this record one of the most powerful hardcore records of all time in my personal opinion. That may have something to do with the time period that I heard this band and this album. When I was very much a young teenager I was very much into hardcore punk. As I got a bit older (14 or so) that branched more and more into the metal hardcore crossover bands of the time. Bands like Earth Crisis, Deadguy, Strife, Unbroken, Converge, Turmoil, etc. Well at the time hardcore was starting to move in a different direction and a lot of post hardcore bands were gaining a lot of attention and the mood of things started to shift. Hardcore was getting softer and more artistically
oriented (not a bad thing). Then out of no where a friend of mine came over with the Hatebreed split with Neglect. He told me I had to check it out and I did. It was amazing, brutally heavy. The vocals were unlike anything I'd heard, deep and tough as hell, but crystal clear. The lyrics wereuncompromising and brutal and they seemed to be something anyone could relate to. Anyway I was sold I immediately recorded it to tape and Hatebreed became my favorite band. A few months later after sufficiently wearing out the tape I heard a 7 inch comp that had another Hatebreed song "Mark My Words" on it and was just absolutely hooked. Then snapcase came to town and were selling this ep. On their merch table and I instantly bought it. This ep. Changed everything from the very first sound (the feedback and panned guitar that starts this record off) this album blew my mind. It was a continuation of
everything I had heard up until that point and then some. I couldn't get enough of it. It was everything I wanted in a heavy band. About a month later a friend came to me and said he had booked hatebreed at the local skatepark and knew I was way into them and wanted to know if my band would want to open. needless to say I was freakin out man. About a week before the show the venue got shut down and instead of cancelling I went to a friend of mine who had a big backyard and asked him if we could do the show. He was cool with it so the morning of the show I cut the grass and me and that friend stole a bunch of wood and nails from a construction site and built a stage. at show time kids were coming out from all over, we played (and sucked), longshot from Maryland played and killed it, Despair (Scott vogel who later went on to buried alive and then terror) played and everyone went crazy,
and then when the sun went down and we hung a single light bulb from he attic window Hatebreed took the stage. What occured that night was absolute insanity. While I am sure that the guys in Hatebreed probably don't even remember that show it is forever etched in my mind. Kids went absolutely insane and their set was completely unbelievable. I heard every song off this ep. Including filth which had the heaviest breakdown I had ever heard and even included some new songs that I hadn't heard before. Anyway this "review" isn't really a review but I just wanted to emphasize the impact this album and band had on me at such a young age. I have had the privelage of seeing them perform in every single stage of their career and none of those performances will beat the first one for me. The albums that followed are all good so far, but that first record to me is still the one that scorched the
earth.
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