It’s been a good few months for hardcore. Not stomp and romp bullshit like Terror, but real, punk rooted, emotional, melodic, tense hardcore; Brothers, Advent, Verse, Take It Back, Elder, Have Heart, and biggest of all the long awaited (at least for me) follow up to 2005’s killer debut, In Place Apart, from Sacramento’s Killing the Dream.

At one time featuring members of deathcore bruisers Embrace the End (there has been quite a line up shift since In Place Apart), Killing the Dream are a searing, contemporary hardcore act full of passion and emotion, rife with melody but also deliver their harmonic power chords with bite and spite that few modern hardcore acts can match. With a primal intensity matching their sense of rending harmony, as well as a grittier, denser J Robbins production, Killing the Dream deliver 12 short, sharp bursts of feral modern hardcore, that while could be compared to the likes of Comeback Kid and Bane, just comes across as so much more intense and visceral.

Part of that is vocalist Elijah Horner who screams like the bottom of his feet are on fire for the album’s shamefully brief, 23 minute duration. His vitriolic, passionate presence mixed with the frantic, chaotic yet somehow melodic guitars and virtually constant pressure and relentless pace and fury of the material make for a draining but rewarding hardcore album-you almost feel yourself finally taking a deep breath when closer “Resolution” comes to and end.

Tracks like “Part II (Motel Art)”, “Consequence (What Comes Next)”, “Everything But Everything”, “Hang The Jury”, “We Were”, “You’re All Welcome” careen out of the speakers with melodically blistering, tangible rage, while a few slower tracks like the title track, “Thirty Four Seconds”, “Holding the Claws” and the aforementioned closer, show a intensely introspective Killing the Dream who should now be regarded one of contemporary hardcore’s very top acts.

[Visit the band's website]

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