Alarm! – S/T (Outcasted Victimized Hardcore)
Oh hahha yes, what a great cover this has. Most hardcore I get for review is too old school to be called old school, meaning it sounds like nostalgic shit you should have wiped out of your ass years ago. When was Hatebreed relevant? 1995? Give that crud a flush with the people who listen to it. True hardcore features that old energy, but it knows when to separate and trudge ahead up the difficult hill of fallen bands who refused to stop two-stepping. Sweden’s Alarm! are just such an outfit, bringing the outcasted, society-hating energy critical to the genre, yet bending it to their wills in a fashion that might, at least at times, surprise you.
I’m easily irritated by the consistency in hardcore vocal delivery, which thankfully is not a feature of this S/T. Alarm! mix a variety of vocal styles in their victimized, angry approach. But, ah, a real feature is the often irregular musical approaches. You get ready to fist pump to a bass line and that recognizable d-beat but suddenly you feel a kind of angry that surpasses teenage angst and enters the realm of real-world, adult, despair. Soon you’re screaming along, though uncertain of the lyrics (but realizing they mean business), driving nails into your own wrists and feet to crucify your psychologically battered body before the gods of society. At times they approach dangerously close to the type of hardcore we all need to forget, but as a whole Alarm! are one of the most promising bands of the genre to grace this sordid site.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Alarm! – S/T
Armageddon Label
Cover Art: Andy Henriksson
4.5 / 5
