Yo this record is bananas. Altered Boys are the best current hardcore band right now because they keep it simple, and keep it raw. No changes in the production quality on this one (because I think all the tracks from the first slab were recorded at the same time) – everything sounds gritty, hard, and still in your face without relying on parlor tricks. When their demo dropped I was so worried that they would fall into that “turn everything up to 300% and then master it in a tin can” shit for their next release. It makes me happy there are still good bands out there who want to sound like themselves.

All the cuts on this are sick. “The Blame” is straight in your face for the first half until everything breaks out and the 1776 snare mosh hits you. You wanna load your bayonette with the stick thing, blast a shot in the air, grab the stick thing again and reload to fire another shot, but then song straight jumps back to hyper drive and blasts you once more. “Powerless” was sick when they recorded it for the Joy Boys comp, but it sounds so much cooler with the vocals now echoing through the rafters. I just wish they had a sound guy to make this happen live for them. “Timebomb” is a familiar old friend which is just a punk ripper with some good fast floorpunching mosh at the end. Nothing to complain about there.

My one and one beef with the record hits during “Get Used To It” – Geoff does one of those hardcore grunts during the intro that wasn’t there on the demo and it really drives me nuts. I don’t know why. Fuck you, Geoff, but you won’t read this anyway. The final track “Ugliness” is my favorite shit of the record – an epic ballad in terms of Altered Boys songs coming in at 2:10. I honestly thought this shit was a cover when I first heard it because it was so different from the rest of their stuff. This one’s a slower groove anthem that keeps your head nodding. It makes you wanna strap on your boots and creepy crawl around the dusty pit of a New Brunswick basement. This little diddy rounds out the rest of the 7″ perfectly. I also didn’t know someone could put the word “fucking” into a song so many times. Punk as FUCK.

Get this from Deranged. Listen to it here. Shouts to the Newbridge scene.