Review Summary: At its core “Jonestown” is an album that you must attack with only one thing in mind, Having Fun
Now let me be a bit honest here, in not fan of this breed of hardcore per say, sure I enjoy a few Hatebreed and Terror albums but I really don’t quite get it, the emphasis on breakdowns, the mandatory use of two-stepping beats, it just all seems soooo…
average.
Enter Billy the Kid, this costa-rican band have managed to pull out of their scene and toured Europe along bands like Lasting Traces, their debut LP “Esta Ciudad Ardera” (Spanish for “This City Will Burn”).
Showed a good amount of breakdowns, two-stepping, rapping and more chugs than a college party, the record wasn’t bad at all, it was just plagued by repetitiveness, aside the two occasional rapped song or intro it was all the ***n same.
Now BTK released their sophomore effort “Jonestown”, an album that takes the same aspects that made their debut enjoyable and crank it up to 11, unfortunately it’s still not without its faults, or at the very least not as many as other bands playing this style of hardcore lately.
After the intro that gives us a preaching Jim Jones we follow up to the self titled track “Jonestown”, which clocks at a mere 2 minutes in true hardcore fashion, the riffs are big, the breakdowns will smash your face flat, the two stepping is prominent and enjoyable, the bass is one of the most audible joys I’ve heard in a hardcore album in years, it’s all good and nice but it’s still pretty
ok .
This is my main problem with this kind of albums, all the tracks seem to flow into each other so much its almost impossible to differentiate one from another (see “Jonestown” and “Timothy McVeigh”).
However BTK have one element that most hardcore bands lack,
Variety.
And it’s here where they truly shine, despite its awkward start, which kills the whole flow that Timothy McVeigh had going, “FDL 13” brings something anybody that’s heard BTK before has heard. rapping, this guys love their rap, and the focus is not that the rap is awesome per say (it’s actually quite stale and average) but it gives off that vibe that only this band could attempt this kind of stuff and actually make it believable, and it’s this capability what makes this an utterly enjoyable ride.
But it doesn't stop there; the intro on “Unabomber” is a much welcomed difference to the standard breakdown intro or menacing sound;
“Bohemian C” gives us something not heard in most of the hardcore albums, techno mixed with rap, “Ted Bundy” has the most powerful bass line in the entire album, which is saying something, “Makavelli” has an almost metalcore-y feel in the first seconds; And finally Rockefeller has reggae,
yes reggae, and what makes it even nicer is the fact that it only lasts over a minute, so the band never becomes too much of a mockery by overindulging on something they know nothing about, it just comes in, goofs around and leaves before you can hate it.
At its core “Jonestown” is an album that you must attack with only one thing in mind, Having Fun.
that is the main objective of the album, the whole experimentation thing, it’s just the way they've tried to expand their musical horizons but I definitely get the feeling they wouldn't have done it if they weren't having fun with it.
