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Baltimore hardcore mainstays END IT have brought out a multitude of essential releases, and from their 2017 self titled EP onto other EPs that followed like One Way Track and Unpleasant Living, the band’s music always hit harder than a blast from a shotgun. Anticipation for their full length debut was always high and now it has arrived. The album, which is titled Wrong Side Of Heaven, demonstrates exactly why END IT are leading lights in a new breed of hardcore heroes, and the album has definitely been worth the wait.
From the opening notes of the album’s title track, Wrong Side Of Heaven simply explodes with a therapeutic vivacity. It’s hard hitting but there is an undoubted positivity brimming with power with every single second that it plays, and it positively emits from the speakers, bustling with an undisputed energy and attitude at the same time.
Hardcore anthems abound and after the album’s title track gets the party started, the energy is off the scale and unparalleled as END IT, led by riot starting vocalist Akil Godsey let rip on tracks like Pale Horse, Billion Dollar Question, Cloutbusting and Optical Delusions, with the results being outstanding constantly.
There is plenty of variety in the band’s hardcore barrage too. I, Lament for example has plenty of LEEWAY/SUICIDAL type riffing and a groove that could shake buildings while the massive stomp that SICK OF IT ALL would be proud of in Used 2 Be is utterly immense and takes the energy levels up even more. Add to that the frenetic likes of Anti-Colonial and Future Without A Past and you already have an album that is a force to be reckoned with.
The quality doesn’t stop there though and the bulldozing music of END IT doesn’t let up on Disdain (U Mad) and Hookworm before the melodic anthem Could You Love Me? emerges and offers up a bit of a curveball and a complete change of pace, while still sounding completely like END IT. This song sounds, at times, like it could easily fit straight in onto a classic CHEAP TRICK album, a DESCENDENTS record or even more truthfully, a MISFITS record, albeit minus the horror lyrics of course on that count, as well as having a much more polished production. The greatest thing about this particular song, and something that sums the whole album up is that even though it is completely different, it doesn’t sound out of place at all and fits perfectly with the forward thinking energy of the hardcore intensity that prevails.
Wrong Side Of Heaven ends on a sheer triumphant note with Empire’s Demise, a ready made mosh anthem that is perfect for the dance-floor and with that, the album is done but you will want to put it straight back on again such is its emphatic brilliance.
Wrong Side Of Heaven is, of course, impactful but with that great, positive vibe throughout, and the incendiary hardcore contained here is undoubtedly addictive. A new standard has been set with this album, and END IT truly deserve all the plaudits they will get, all the while dishing out the most life affirming hardcore of recent times.
Rating: 9/10
Wrong Side Of Heaven is out now via Flatspot Records.
Follow END IT on Instagram.
The post ALBUM REVIEW: Wrong Side Of Heaven – End It appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
