Comeback Kid – Broadcasting…
Victory Records (to be released 2/20/07)
Hardcore punk
I think I was probably about 17 or 18 years old when I realized that not anything and everything loud and angry was worth listening to. Yes, I used to like Earth Crisis. Yes, I used to like Hatebreed. I now realize that both bands were really nothing that special, and Earth Crisis actually rather sucked balls. Around this time, I would realize that DJ Shadow and Underworld were both exponentially better, not necessarily because they weren’t loud and angst-ridden (after all, I do still like Nine Inch Nails), but after a while most of the more uninspired hardcore starts to run together like one big, long teenage tantrum.
Teenagers like to be pissed off at life, and music like this gives them a good outlet for that. The shows allow you to jump around and attack other people, and it’s okay. It’s part of the culture. The music makes you realize that there are other angry and people out there, and although they’re presumably angry about actual things, like being dumped by a girlfriend or not being accepted by their parents, it shows a kid that it’s okay to be angry. Some of the fans aren’t necessarily pissed at life, but they just like the energy of the music and the shows. There’s really nothing wrong with either, and as record sales show, people love this shit no matter what I say or think.
It’s difficult to review a hardcore album without taking into consideration that I don’t like the music, but I do respect it for what it is. Broadcasting… brings nothing new or particularly exciting to the genre, but I guess after listening to same stuff over and over again, as a fan you like a new album once in a while. Singer Andrew Neufeld is going it alone this time, as singer Scott Wade left the band in a heavily publicized (relatively speaking, within the underground) sendoff at a Winnipeg show last summer. Neufeld keeps up the energy well, and doesn’t do any of that whiny screaming that sounds like a rat is being strangled to death. “industry Standards” has a quick, hard tempo and much like the rest of the album, one may draw comparisons to Snapcase or early At the Drive-In (both of which I really don’t mind).
Songs like “In Case of Fire” and “Market Demands” differ a bit and sound slightly refreshing after listening to the rest of the album, which tends to run together. Unfortunately, the vocals are just too similar in all of the songs, and it’s difficult to get past that as an outsider. While it’s certainly easier on the ears than a lot of its contemporaries, unless you are a fan of hardcore, skip it and buy this instead. Or this. Or this.
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