Saturday, February 24, 2018

American Nightmare - "American Nightmare"

If you're into the current Hardcore Punk scene, well then you know all about American Nightmare.  Their history is a long one, for a while they were known as Give Up The Ghost, then got sued and changed their name, then I'm pretty sure went back to it for a while and now are back to releasing music as American Nightmare.  Their debut album, "Background Music", was anything but background music.  This was a pretty standard, meat & potatoes Hardcore album, filled with exhausting verses and explosive vocals.  Honestly, I wanted to hear a little personality out of these guys though, maybe some more melodic passages too. That's not to say though that I wasn't into parts of this album, I thought tracks like "Postmark My Compass" and "Your Arsonist" to be really freakin' great.   But I'll be honest, on Give Up The Ghost's next full-length album "We're Down Til We're Underground" I was absolutely blown away.  I loved the beefier production and the more crushing instrumentals.  This album was brutal, but from a technical standpoint was so much more than just a Hardcore Punk album.  Tracks like "Bluem" were melodic in parts, but tracks like "The Last Supper After Party" reminded you just who you were dealing with.  For a modern Hardcore album, this was pretty damn brutal.  Shortly after, the band broke up and stayed quiet for about 15 years.  American Nightmare is back, and honestly, I haven't really checked out the singles released beforehand.  Let's see how these Punk legends sound.

This album starts out with “The World Is Blue”.  Now, this is actually an oddly, but fittingly triumphant intro.  I love just how soaring the guitars are in the opening bars, and the verse that follows is actually one of the more unhinged and truly wild verses in Hardcore that I’ve heard in a while.  Honestly, American Nightmare doesn’t sound like they’ve slowed down at all.  I love how full throttle this track is, between the chugging riff and thunderous drums.  It’s all fantastic, and I’m totally into this as an intro.  Then we have “Flowers Under Siege”, which takes a lot from Hardcore Punk with its very unhinged performance.  It’s 40 seconds, but it’s easily one of the more fun tunes I’ve heard in Hardcore in a while.  It’s all just so simple, but it works.  Then we have “American Death”, which is easily one of the most brutal and fleshed out tracks here.  We have Wesley Eisold’s very pissed off and aggressive vocals, then we have the absolutely blaring instrumentals that follow.  This is Hardcore by the numbers, but it’s absolutely some of the more refreshing I’ve heard recently.  There are no solos in sight and nothing out of the box, but “American Death” will absolutely beat the piss out of you.


    Then we have moments like “War” which are much more melodic, almost coming off more like a Skate Punk track.  There’s tons of melody in those determined guitars, and I love just how pained the singing of Wesley gets here.  Not to mention, as visceral and spit-in-your-face this is, I feel like this is just melodic enough to stick with you.  More than anything, this is such a great reminder of the serious energy that comes in Hardcore.  Now, “Gloom Forever’ is up next, and it may be the most accurate title here because this track is so much more downtrodden and filled with sorrow.  But I feel like it’s done almost to a fault.  I just feel like too much of this sounds like some random Emo band that tried to get all heavy.  This really isn’t that good at all of a track even, especially compared to everything else here.   But “Lower Than Life” takes all the doom and gloom of the last track and bashes it right in the fucking mouth.  This one is intense, gruesome, and not afraid of anything.  These are easily some of the most vicious vocals and wild verses here.  Everything melodic is gone for a few minutes sure, but it’s replaced by raw power and I love it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4qrsojz6UY

    “Colder Than Death” is up next, and it breaks things up rather nicely.  This isn’t some wild, out of control Punk banger.  No, this is much slower and intense and pounding.  But I’m really not into any of it again.  The sort of Goth vocals we’re getting here isn’t flattering, and I’m just seriously missing the energy of earlier tracks.  But hey!  That energy is back with a vengeance on “Dream”.  It’s all let out full blast in this 26-second blast of incredible Low-Fi Punk that sounds like it was ripped biting and clawing out of the 80’s.  It’s a great tune though. This album finishes off with “Crisis of Faith”, and for a slower tune, I’m actually totally into his.  I love the tension these instrumentals build up.  And at the very least, Wesley still sound on top of his game as far as intensity goes.  We get a fantastic release too, as this chorus is easily the most explosive and cutthroat on the entire album.  I mean, for a current Hardcore release that runs about 19 minutes, this is pretty damn solid, especially when you take in the 15 years it’s been since they’ve released anything. 

Rating: 7.8/10

Give A Listen To: "The World is Blue", "American Death", "War", "Crisis of Faith"

Genre: Hardcore Punk / Punk Rock

Overall Thoughts:   Considering these guys haven’t released anything in 15 years, this album is dangerous.  It may be fairly straightforward, explosive and fueled by anger, emotions and raw power.  It seems incredibly current, but also looks to the true greats of this genre.  While I wouldn’t say there isn’t anything groundbreaking going on here artistically, American Nightmare show up to do their job and do it good.  Not to mention, this is an amazing reminder of just how much great energy there is in Hardcore Punk. 

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