Review Summary: Hatebreed’s front man goes almost solo. But with the help of some of the other faces this album becomes highly enjoyable.
Hatebreed have always been one of the hardcore genres fore-runners. Influencing many acts across the stretch of their careers in order to help shape the music we listen to. Jasta tries his hand at a solo album and for the most part creates an interesting and energy fuelled listen. As listeners could imagine, the album is fairly up tempo and the main feeling is that of a typical hardcore album. From Jasta’s solo self titled work, listeners can tell right away that hardcore is not dead.
Jasta’s self titled effort also includes other big names including that of Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe. While these may not have been anyone’s first choices they do create a dynamic contrast and maintain a higher playback level for the listener. The album itself is aided by a smooth production and a dirty metal/hardcore-ish sound which firms the obvious musical roots the album explores.
This album has some very promising features including some rather anthem like tracks. Listeners will find some of these catchy and may even start yelling along with the lyrics. These tracks as well as others show off Jasta’s personal song writing ability and his focused sound. “Anthem Of The Freedom Fighter” has many sections where listeners can be engaged enough to sing a long, but more importantly maintain their attention throughout the track, heightening it’s play back value.
While this makes for a solid self titled solo album there is a couple of down points that may affect how much the listener likes this album. The low points include Jasta’s clean singing which obviously are not going to be best thing going around. Fortunately for the listener, the clean vocal phrases are few and far between. When looking for positives listeners will notice Mark Morton’s guitar work on “Death Bestowed”. Morton creates an atmospheric and dark sound which reinforces the lyrical message. He presents the listener with well thought out riff patterns which complement most parts of the track. It’s intelligent, tasteful and interesting to hear this mash up of sounds (i.e. Morton on another project with different artists).
This album is nothing different and is certainly not going to turn to many heads. The fact that Jasta has an opportunity to play with a few different artists should create some interest but it is doubtful that many will give this more than a few spins. For fans of metal and hardcore alike they shouldn’t be expecting anything new, but they fortunately will have picked up an album that is both consistent and up tempo. There is nothing shocking on Jasta’s solo album. No experimentation it’s just some good old fashioned hardcore/metal tracks.
