“You’d better turn it up.
Or turn it off.
Or get fucked”.

That pretty much sums up The Hell, a fun loving, foul mouthed hard core band from Watford, England, who on their Prosthetic Records debut indeed drop the groovehammer with a raucous mix of brute force beefy, American core mixed with a piss n sneer of 70s punk/skinheads like Sid Vicious/The Sex Pistols. Imagine for a second, Hatebreed, but fronted by two bandanna clad characters from any Guy Ritchie gangster film, Eastenders or Attack the Block. One a burly Jamey Jasta  sounding tough guy and one, a “cunt”, dick” and “faahck” dropping machine.

Being a displaced Brit from England/London myself, I’m sure I appreciated this more than the average yank as the vocals, especially the higher register, potty mouthed, sneering one, who cracked me the fuck up. And with song titles like ‘Bangers & Mosh”, We Love Dicks”, “I’ll Snap You’re Fucking Head Clean Off ” (a personal favorite,  I mean how many metal songs reference a Twix?), ‘We Handle Shit” and “We Speed Shit Up”, these guys are having fun but also indeed bringing the metaphorical ‘groove ‘amma’ with some very tasty, heavy and burly hardcore.

This isn’t social/political or have a message, just some metal loving lager louts, Chavs and “30 or so other cunts” (according to the band), providing the record breaking amount of  “CUNTS!” gangchants, having a blast and actually being pretty good at it. The riffs are thick as all ‘ell and the  lyrics are funny, even more so if you ‘get’ the very British-isms that seem to hardcore/metal equivalent of an  issue of Viz magazine (ie. “You’ve Got An Xl Pain Burger,With A Side Of Par,Check You Fucking Dickheads Chomping On These Bars,These Riffs Ain’t Gonna Cook Themselves, Leave Your Tesco Value Jams On The Fucking Shelf).  If you don’t or take this too seriously, you are more than likely to find the delivery a bit obnoxious and offensive, in which case, the band can declare mission accomplished.

The band’s tongue is obviously planted firmly in cheek  (there is a song about the board game Battleship-“Fuck this nautical bullshit…Red pegs all across your chest, torpedoes all fuckin’ day!“), but the music does not fuck about. Each song designed to cause maximum, Doc Martin filled mosh pits with ample groove and breakdowns. I can only imagine the chaos caused in a live environment by the aforementioned “Bangers & Mosh”, “I’ll Snap You’re Fucking Head Clean Off “, ‘Everybody Dies”  or “Old Jacks, New Jacks”. It’s simple, its offensive, it’s heavy as bollocks,  and importantly to me,  it’s unequivocally English in its innate roots . And considering I get absolutely ZERO English hardcore albums to review in my mail box, that’s a big ‘effin plus mate.

Roger Mellie would be proud.

[Visit the band's website]

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