Now, we have already covered the fact that I am a fanboy of a certain family tree of hardcore punk bands stemming from the Northern Cali region. This is not new news. Never Healed, though, were special, a veritable, and underrated, supergroup. A blistering 5 piece whose members had done time in Look Back and Laugh, Yaphet Kotto, Lights Out among many others. Take the influence of those former bands, that being hard as nails hardcore punk, turn it up to 11. Yeah, that awesome.
In all serious, the music is fantastic. Sure, they maybe reinventing the wheel, but the style in which they accomplish that is quite unique. It was heavy, and not in the loud or 90's metalcore way, but in the "whoa, that riff just total dropped an anvil on that old lady" way. Their blend of hardcore was evil sounding, the song "We Are Ruins" is a 42 second lesson in making a hardcore song as hard as a box of nails. So, take this already evil instrumental sound, and then place Casey's vocals over it and you are really taken to a dark place. To say Casey had a unique vocal style, especially in Never Healed, would not be an understatement. Where as most bands of this age were shouting over their band, Casey's vocals took a page from the black metal book. Visceral, shrill screaming about the world ending and the human race being a disease. Pure contempt without sounding trite or redundant, not something many bands can achieve these days. Plus, though I never had the chance to see them, it looks like they threw one hell of a live show (I've attached a video from their first show below, that's right, first show). Enjoy if this is your thing.
Tracks:
- Forever Never Ends
- Ruins
- Lonely Crawls
- Wind and Smoke
- Waits to Destroy
- Where the Crosses Grow
- We Are Ruins
- Far We Fall
0 comments:
Post a Comment