After the
first Selfmindead album, i couldn’t wait for this sophmore release by these
Swedish/Finnish hard core masters. There have been some changes in line-up. Bass
player Tapani has left the band, now it’s only singer Ikka, bass & guitar
player Timo and drummer/bass player/guitar player/backing vocalist Marko. Live,
these guys play with Tommy on drums and Even on bass. This album was released by
Soulscape Records in Sweden and Scandinavia, the release over here in The
Netherlands has been done by Sally Forth Records. I will review the
Solid State edition of “At The Barricades We Fall”.
This album
opens with the great song “Liar”. This song starts with a nice guitar lick
and some nice melodies. Then, the hard core returns! Singer Ikka put away the
distortion he used on his voice in the past, and the melodic singing that he used to do has
been replaced by him screaming his guts out! Brutal, technical hard core! You
can clearly hear the progression the band has been going through. One thing i
always like in hard core/metal core is screaming followed by whispering. It gives these kinds of music an extra atmosphere. Singer Ikka does it with
honours! “Burn Down The Old And Build Up The New” is a song that explains
exactly what i mean. (By the way, ZAO does this too a couple of times on their
albums!) This song is also a great example of Ikka’s screaming.
“The Motivation Song” has been
my favorite song of this album since the first time i heard it: a great wall of guitars with this fantastic yell
that keeps returning: “You Can Be The Best, The Best Of The Rest”. Great how
the music stops a couple of times and kicks in again after a moment of silence.
The lyrics on this album are intense, dealing with themes like freedom, ignorance, friendship and love for God. I love these guys' approach of the lyrics, cause they’re a lot less predictable than one expects. A song like “Into The Fire” is a great example for this (check it out in our Lyrics section).
All songs on
this album rock big time and differ a lot from the ones on Selfmindead’s Self
Titled debut. The only song that sounds a little like the first album is, in my
opinion, “One Step Forward”.
In short: this album
shows you the result of Selfmindead’s development: agressive, brutal yet still
melodic and technical hard core is what Selfmindead brings you. The new style of
singing they use now is great, fantastic, amazing, exactly what singing should
sound like in a hard core band (in my opinion).
This album
gets 8.8 out of 10 points! Great! Can’t wait to see them live again!
Martijn
for