Review Summary: M4YL yo
Joe Hardcore. It’s a name that has rang throughout the metaphorical walls of hardcore for the past 20 years. One of the most known, one of the first you may hear of when entering da trenches…. also one of the most infamous. You may now know him for such classics as: Beating up and choking out kids at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, beating up and choking out kids at This Is Hardcore fest many years concurrently, beating up and choking out k…. Well, you get the jist. With a reputation such as Mr. Hardcore’s in the current day, it may be hard for some to remember him in any other fashion than a jaded, scorned oldhead with a pension for ruining kids days/weeks, but before any of this became whispers on the internet, Sir Joe was shouting his head off as the vocalist of one of the early 2000’s most cataclysmic hardcore outifts, Shattered Realm.
Fusing together true blue, tough-guy hardcore with the flare and melodic elements of the times’ gritty metallic hardcore, this album displays an incredible knowledge of both sides of the card, and being the group were already a decade+ indebted to the scene at this point, it’s not surprising, despite them only having been a group since 2000. A perfect example being “Kings Cannot Fall” where the band wastes no time with a monsterous beatdown at the front of the track, transitioning into an undeniable two-step, then cycles between more monsterous breakdowns and tamer, soaring riffage that appears towards the end of the track. While metallic hardcore was not a novel concept even in ‘02, Shattered Realm was one of the first in the wave of groups that really set the formula in motion for more modern, breakdown-centric bands to have a grasp over it.
Speaking of the worst part to say out loud but best part in terms of listening: The breakdowns.
Monsterous. Songs like Showdown and Thais World is mine complement the grooves with catchy gang vocals and anthemic chants. Songs like the aforementioned Kings Cannot Fall and All Will Suffer have no problem bashing it over your head at the very start, and in the latter’s case, have 0 issue making nearly the entire song one big beatdown. Obviously, if the mosh ain’t chose you, you not gonna choose this…..
Now the one thing I can rag on it for is obviously being a tad samey. 33 minutes isn’t a long run time by any means, but while each track does have very separate micro ideas that make them captivating, you’re not gonna see a lot of variation from fast part, breakdown, melodic part, slower breakdown. Not that it will put you to sleep, it’s outward energy and clear passion is a tad too infectious to take a snooze to. A classic of the times and a template on how to write true, meaningful mosh parts.
