Biohazard’s Urban Discipline introduced the band’s one-of-a-kind, Brooklyn thrash-rap sound to hardcore fans outside the five boroughs. It’s an authentic mix of inner-city vocal rhythms with metal’s take-no-prisoners attitude, one that granted them international credibility. Urban Discipline is an original hardcore metal-rap album, debuting a half-decade prior to the rap-rock explosion of the late ’90s. It is defiant and distinctive — in some senses a precursor of bands such as Korn, Limp Bizkit, and the Deftones, and in other ways in a class all its own. It[......]

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The first Madball release for Roadrunner Records, Set It Off is a document of this hardcore outfit at their most menacing, both musically and lyrically. With Freddy Cricien on vocals, Vinnie Stigma and Matt Henderson on guitar, Will Shepler on drums, and bassist Hoya rounding out the rhythm section, these NY hardcore specialists made a huge sound that was undeniably loud, rude, and confrontational. The music underground praised Madball for the unforgiving brutality and skill displayed on this 1994 offering that includes standouts like the bone-crunching “Face to Face,” “Never[......]

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While “Blinded by Fear” begins Slaughter of the Soul with a screwy and interesting semi-industrial percussion loop, about 40 seconds in it becomes all light-speed crunch, riffs, and snarls, so those who never liked thrash in the first place aren’t going to be convinced by the goings-on here. But for those for whom such stuff is like oxygen? It depends. Singer Tomas Lindberg actually steers away from the typical Cookie Monster growl in favor of a higher but equally strangled register, while his lyrics avoid bad fantasy poesy, at least for the most part, in favor of more existe[......]

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Focused and extremely heavy, Destroy the Machines represented a huge leap forward in the recording career of Earth Crisis. Released in 1995, this full-length debut from the band is the all-time best-selling disc in the Victory Records catalog, and with good reason. After recording a few successful but relatively tame 7″ EPs, Earth Crisis really shook the world of hardcore with this punchy collection of metallic straight edge fury. Displaying a rare talent for the development of original yet supremely heavy riffs, the men of Earth Crisis brought a musical directness to Destroy the Machine[......]

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While grindcore fanatics might downgrade this album a bit for its polished aesthetic, one cannot argue the ingenuity and true creative spirit of Need to Control. Brutal Truth, being a very unique band, incorporate elements from several different genres, including death metal, hardcore, punk, and noise; the music on this album is not so easily and debatably classified as grindcore/metal with somewhat of a hardcore-ish feel. Brutal Truth are one of the few bands that can lash out from a controlled, pounding guitar riff to a spastic free-for-all while still displaying precision and without soundi[......]

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