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Sick of It All: Yours Truly
Since it first emerged as the streamlined antecedent of punk rock, lean and mean hardcore has become increasingly distant from its safety-pinned and snotty cousin. The hardcore scene today can be viewed as a pure embodiment of the punk sentiment—sharp, distilled rage designed to be accessible. Sick of It All (SOIA), in its long and luminous career as a pioneer of the genre, has evolved from sloppy, belligerent New York hardcore to thrashy, high-speed "hawd" core, managing to achieve Warped-Tour celebrity status without completely alienating its underground following. This latest release, on incongruously pop-oriented Fat Wreck Chords, displays how well SOIA has aged in its tumultuous journey from "old-school" to "new-school."
For starters, SOIA has kept its anger intact. Lou Koller's blood-curdling vocals retain the I'm-going-to-rip-out-your-still-beating-heart-and-stomp-on-it feel that made the band's earlier work so inspiring for angry kids across America. But the driving tempo, eerily clean production, and intense, metal-tinged riffage throw the music's violent charge right into the listener's face while leaving behind the gritty imperfectionism of the old school. Each track, laden with thick chord progressions and vicious percussion, is chaotic yet disturbingly controlled in its dynamic ferocity. The slick sound is bigger, more ambitious, and more powerful than previous recordings, suggesting a sophistication that has almost outgrown the band's punk roots.
The songwriting veers away from classic themes of scene politics and troubled youth but exudes the same dark nihilism that attracted people to hardcore back when punk was getting campy and frivolous. Lyrics that border on apocalyptic pessimism ("Facing life with blinders/A slave to my own inhibitions") can seem rather melodramatic, but SOIA still conveys a tight intellectual edge. The more pensive songs explore questions of identity and self-discovery, but cathartic verses about hating "the overpaid" and society's "self-destructive system"—so savagely simplistic yet so painfully honest—are endearing regressions into the rabble-rousing angst of early '80s hardcore punk. Drawing on the old and the new, SOIA's distinctive brutality fuses anger, principle and attitude. (Fat Wreck)
—Michelle Chen
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