YEAR OF THE KNIFE add more weight to the hardcore resurgence.
Internal Incarceration PURE NOISE
Delaware hardcore debutants stage an incandescent breakout
INTERNAL INCARCERATION MAY
be Delaware hardcore fivepiece Year Of The Knife’s debut album, but they’ve managed to court enough interest from producer (and Converge guitarist) Kurt Ballou for him to twiddle the knobs on this 13-track, 31-minute expulsion of brutal savagery. Kurt’s patronage is more often than not a sure sign of quality and while the album doesn’t provide any startling reinvention of the genre, it remains consistently strong throughout its brief runtime.
Year Of The Knife take a relatively straighthead approach to metallic hardcore, an approach at odds with the glut of hardcore contemporaries desperately trying to catch up with the hate and glitch cacophony of Code Orange. On the one hand, it’s a courageous move to ignore the current zeitgeist; on the other, it could be perceived as a foolish refusal to embrace pastures new. Only time will tell, but the band undoubtedly pick their lane and stick to it throughout Internal Incarceration.
Vocalist Tyler Mullen has a ferocious roar that cuts through the discord of the band behind him. His impassioned cries of ‘You can’t keep killing yourself’ on Premonitions Of You are searing, a plea for someone to kick the habit and turn their life around delivered as incandescent decree. In fact, the destruction that drug abuse can cause is a repeated theme throughout Internal Incarceration, the title of which is surely a metaphor for those who succumb to addiction. Guitarists Brandon Watkins and Aaron Kisielewski stick to the sludgy lower ends of their respective fretboards for the majority of the album’s runtime, a limitation they just about get away with this time around. However, if Year Of The Knife want to be held up alongside the greats of the genre in future, they’re going to have to start looking outside what sounds like a relatively narrow pool of influence. ■■■■■■■■■■
FOR FANS OF: Harm’s Way, Knocked Loose, Terror
REMFRY DEDMAN