Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Ironbound NYC - With a Brick CD Review

Let me put this out there right off the bat—if you buy this cd not knowing what you’re getting into then, my friend, you are not exactly the brightest crayon in the box. For those of you that are duller colors, let’s thoroughly examine this release, shall we? We’ll worry about the actual music later. For now, let’s look and see what you can gleam simply by carefully looking over the cd.

First, take a gander at the band name — they’re called Ironbound NYC. If that doesn’t scream “hardcore like a bastard” then maybe the title of the album, With a Brick, will… Come on, do you see pop-punk bands naming their albums With a Brick? I don’t think so. Heck, if those two things don’t give this band’s entire sound away, then the cover should. It’s a metal gate padlocked shut with chains that would hold down the Hulk, which sure isn’t what you’d come to expect from the latest R&B sensation, now would you?

Now if, for some un-freakin-believable reason, you still can’t peg these guys as an average tough-guy hardcore band, read the song titles. Let’s see, there’s “Lies” and “Strength in Unity”. There’s also “Truth” and “Vengeance”. And For good measure they even name a track “With a Brick” after the album title. To top it off they’re signed to Thorp Records, a label known for putting out lots and lots of hardcore.

With it now fully established that this band is straight up hardcore, there’s not too much else to say, is there? I could mention that there are members of Sick of It All, Maximum Penalty, Killing Time, and Chronic Fear in the band, but that’ll only reinforce the notion that this cd doesn’t bring anything new to the hardcore genre. In fact, these guys try their damnedest to sound like they’re coming right out of the bad side of New York, circa 1990.

I realize that hardcore enthusiasts are always saying that the genre doesn’t need anything new or has no reason to change — that it just needs to keep trucking along, but if no bands in the genre ever do anything new, then what’s the point of hardcore bands even putting out records when they’re just rehashing Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags chords over and over again? Go listen to the classics instead.

Stay true to the originals. Stick to your roots. Stand firm. Live for what got you here. Stand up against the man. Kill your parents. Yadda yadda yadda. Hardcore yay!

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