No Cure – I Hope I Die Here (crossover death-metal/core)
Deathcore has become one of the most dominant and (surprisingly) popular forms of modern extreme metal. Yet, while there are plenty of bands out here pushing the genre into new realms of inventiveness and extremity, the style as a whole as also become extremely homogeneous, and also strayed somewhat away from its original, crossover appeal, in its quest for ever more bludgeoning and guttural terrain. Enter militant straight-edge Alabaman crew No Cure, who not only play a brand of deathcore that sounds like actual death metal, but have a heavy helping of identifiable hardcore to their sound as well.
I Hope I Die Here delivers a monstrous, eighteen-minute slap to the face that makes good on its genre's original ideology of blending the brutality bands like Dying Fetus with the upbeat aggression of hardcore heroes like Hatebreed. To that extent, No Cure feel like a throwback to early crossover acts like Despised Icon, or my beloved Her Nightmare if they'd hung around long enough to rip off Knocked Loose along with everybody else, which is why I'm leaning more toward the "crossover death metal" tag, rather than the more immediate deathcore one.
The EP also offers up an avalanche of guest spots, from both the new and old(er)-schools, featuring members of—inhales—: Gideon, Wielded Steel, Beautiful Child of God, Cold Hard Steel, Wretched Blessing/Yautja, MychildrenMyBride, Bareknuckle, The Slam Brigade and Living Tragedy. Whatever you want to call it, I Hope I Die Here goes hard as hell, and—even at the eleventh hour—marks itself out as one of the most volatile and exhilarating releases in a year what has turned out to be a remarkably rowdy and confrontational year for heavy music.
Release Roundup
A Thousand Sufferings + Kludde – Het Pact (black metal)
Aabode – Neo-Age (noise)
Aara – Eiger (post-black metal)
The Alpha Incident – The King Must Die (symphonic/progressive metalcore)
Among These Ashes – Embers Of Elysium (progish thrash)
Asterise – Tale Of A Wandering Soul (power metal)
Athena XIX – Everflow Part 1: Frames Of Humanity (porg metal)
Avhath/Kuntari – Ephemeral Passage (noisy black metal)
Axioma – Live Totality (sludgy funeral doom)
Bleak Magician – How The Disappearance Appeared To Us (psyche rock, post punk?)
Blessed Child – Crossing the Pit (heavy metal, thrash)
Blood Cult – We’re Gonna Take Your Soul (heavy metal)
Burn Down Eden – Epiphany (melodeath)
Carbon Black – Principium 2.0 (groove metal/thrash)
Catharia – Unimaginable Dreams Of Fate (black sludge?)
Chainmörder – Awaken the Chaos (alt/groove-metalcore)
Dark Lightning – The Demons We Create (doomish metal)
Daxma – There Will Come Tomorrow (post rock)
Desert Near The End – Tides Of Time (thrashy power metal)
Detest – A World Drowning In Detest (death metal)
Disoriented – Crossed The Line (groove metal)
Dragunov – Vepr (post metal)
Duisternis – Relapse into Submission (black metal)
Duisternis – Unity Unto None (black metal)
Dwelled – Suffering Heritage (nu deathcore)
Electric Temple – High Voltage Salvation (heavy metal)
Fireblood – Goatslayer (sludge)
Forndom – Moþir (folk doom/drone)
Futilitarian – Annihilation (blackened/progressive melodeath)
Ghostwound – Ghostwound (psyche rock)
Ghoulhouse – Fresh Out Of Flesh (death metal)
Gleemer – End Of The Nail (alt rock/gaze)
Hanabie. – Bucchigiri Tokyo (anime metal)
Heathen Peace – Civilisation Ends Here… (black thrash)
Hollow Leg – Echoes (stoner metal)
Icon Of Evil – Locust Cathedral (death metal)
Infernal Crown – Buried in Darkness (black doom)
Iron Slug – Unrepentant Grin (sludge)
Kaosis – We are the Future (bad/guest-feature nu metal)
Kir – L’appel Du Vide (blackened death metal)
Kronowski – Do I Need a Reason (modern/prog metal?)
The Kryss Talmeth Experience – When The Wheels Fall Off (stoner rock)
Mindreaper – Withering Shine (…Into Oblivion) (melodeath)
Mystery Blue – Night Demon (heavy metal)
Neckbreakker – Within The Viscera (groove death)
Night In Gales – Shadowreaper (melodeath)
Nishaiar – Enat Meret (post-blackened prog folk?)
Nocte Obducta – Hammergeddon 666 (black metal)
Odd Crew – Dark Matters – Part III (grungy mellowdoom)
Old Forest – Graveside (black-doom)
The Old Dead Tree – Second Thoughts (progressive melodeath, goth metal)
Panzerchrist – Maleficum 1 (blackened death metal)
Phantom Excaliver – The Rising Kingdom (power metal)
Pillar Of Light – Caldera (post metal, sludge-doom)
Pokolgép – Vissza sose nézz (heavy metal)
Powell-Payne – Voila (melodic rock, AOR)
Sarcophagum – The Grand Arc Of Madness (doomy disso-death)
Shotgun Sawyer – Shotgun Sawyer (fuzzy blues-rock)
Six Months Of Sun – Creatures (instrumental stoner-sludge)
Spanaway – Songs Of Yesteryear (shoegaze)
Spere – Eight – Led To The Beam (black metal)
Stone Horses – Redemption Chronicles (hard rock)
Summoning Saturn Voids – Summoning Saturn Voids (blackened post/prog-doom)
Sunlight – Son Of The Sun (power metal)
Svarttjern – Draw Blood (crusty blackened-death metal)
Tak Matsumoto Group – TMG II (hard rock)
Tales of Blood – Breath of Repugnance (death metal)
Templar – Treacherous Beast (heavy metal)
Terror – Hymni Belli Occultum (noisy death metal)
Tethra – Withered Heart Standing (blackish melodoom)
Through Mists – Hellscape (weird/progressive black metal)
Uncut – Space Cowboys (hard rock)
Undarlih – Torch Eater (doomy black metal)
Until Death Overtakes Me – Diagenesis (funeral doom)
Until I Wake – Renovate (post hardcore, metalcore)
Valdaudr – Du Skal Frykte (black metal)
Various/Jethro Tull – Aqualung Redux (prog rock, stoner doom)
Virtual Symmetry – Veils of Illumination (prog metal)
Vosforis – Cosmic Cenotaph (industrialish black metal)
White Tower – Night Hunters (heavy metal)
Within Silence – The Eclipse Of Worlds (power metal)
Wizard Tattoo – Living Just For Knife Fighting (weird alt-sludge)
Wizrd – Elements (instrumental prog-rock)
Xenotheory – Blissful Death (deathcore)