  
Massacre/Sound Pollution
German metalcore veterans HATE SQUAD release their sixth album in 18 years. The band continues to mix thrash and death with hardcore, in various doses. Since their formation they have played estivals like the Dynamo, With Full Force etc, sharing the stage with bands like DEATH, KREATOR, MACHINE HEAD, and VENOM, to name but a few. They have also been voted best newcomer 1995 by TV channel Viva, ahead of both FEAR FACTORY and KORN, and been on heavy rotation on both Headbanger´s Ball and Metalla. Enough superlatives for now, how do they sound?
With the info sheet fresh in mind, the soft guitar notes of opening intro “Deep Scars” are a genuine surprise! The title track, on the other hand, is exactly what I was expecting, death with grooves, and even a bit more atmosphere thrown in at the end. The hardcore addition interspersed with thrash opens for ANTHRAX comparisons. There is actually a lot of Joey Belladonna & Co thrown in their better songs, e.g. “Kill” and “Vicious Assault”. When the amount of hardcore is too high things start going downhill, as in “R3VOLUTIONI5T” and “Live and Learn”. The voice of Burkhard Schmitt has its similarities to many thrash vocalists, but the use of voice effects are not my cup of tea. I short I´d say that HATESQUAD could earn easy points by being more faithful to their true sound. For a metalcore band they use a lot of instrumentals, three, and they add dimensions to them that they are not normally associated with. “Misanthropic Soul“ is a cozy piece I could associate with almost any form of traditional metal, but not metalcore! All in all this lot has somewhat changed my appreciation of metalcore, even though I believe that groovy thrash with some death thrown in would be a more adequate description!
Track List
Deep Scars
Katharsis
Your Rotten Life
The One
Hatebomb
A.P.A.B.
Misanthropic Soul
Vicious Assault
Old Times...Good Times
Kill
R3EVOLUTIONI5T
Face Your Demon
Live and Learn
Bonus Tracks
Traitor Scum
Every Second Counts (2011)
www.massacre-records.com www.myspace.com/hatesquad
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