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By RYAN MAVITY
You know something I liked about Cincinnati band Suffocate Faster? They LOOK like a hardcore band. These guys would strike fear in anyone dumb enough to spill a drink on their Doc Martens. That is if they drank, which they don’t since they’re a straight edge band. They make you wonder, what would they be like if they drank or did drugs? Guys like this make you realize just how much Good Charlotte are serious poseurs. They’re built like bouncers with the tats to match.
Their music reflects their look. Take “Taste My Steel,” for instance. Under a menacing downtuned riff, vocalist Chris Alsip rails against the emo wimps who have infected the punk scene recently, screaming “Stay the fuck out of my scene!” He sounds like he means business. He’s got the tone of the school bully sticking his finger in your chest while shaking you down for your lunch money. You want an advertisement to stay away from drugs? Just listen to him on “The Beginning”: “Fuck your drugs/We don’t want them/ I’ll tell you one time/Then I’ll stomp you.” With a message like that, even William Burroughs would go cold turkey.
Don’t Kill The Messenger is a fierce, energetic, unrelenting album. Suffocate Faster crankS the amps and anger up to 11 and doesn’t look back. They’re hardcore but more like a metal band than a snotty punk band. The guitar sound is more reminiscent of, say, Helmet or Biohazard than Minor Threat. Their anger is so furious it makes you wonder what someone put in their Skyline Chili. Musically, it never really deviates from the three chords and a cloud of dust approach, except for the closing track, “Fun Is a Four Letter Word,” which hints at a more complex sound. But that’s OK. You don’t pay to hear hardcore bands noodle around like Phish anyway.
Still, Don’t Kill the Messenger is loaded with blistering guitars, crazed energy and righteous fury. Just make sure you don’t look at them the wrong way.
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