HYLI Vol. LXXXIII - Have Heart and Carcass
Andy sends Patrick another fucking death metal record and Patrick sends Andy thee quintessential amazingcore 2000s record
Man, what a fucking week. My childcare fell through this week (get well soon, Heather!) because the weather dipped below 80 degrees for the first time this year so they immediately got strep. My boss isn’t the most understanding person in the world, even though my job is just WFH Bullshit, so I had to take some PTO time to sit at home with my child. It was fun! It was nice! I like hanging out with my baby a lot and wish my boss wasn’t such a dork! Hope y’all had a good week and hope you have not caught strep throat.
Have Heart - Songs To Scream At The Sun
Patrick: I’d like to say that Have Heart is the band that got me into hardcore but it’s sadly more cliche than that (Black Flag, junior year of high school, we’ve discussed this). However, this is probably the first hardcore record I found “on my own” by using whatever Last.fm or Allmusic search I was doing and that wasn’t just from some generic Rolling Stone or whatever bullshit article of “greatest hardcore records of all-time.” Over time, this style of hardcore (not really melodic hardcore but not a far cry from it) is decidedly not my favorite but Songs to Scream at the Sun remains (Andy: yes I fully agree on this. It is really easy to do this style bad and hard to do good and they did very good, spoiler alert). They simply were much better than their peers and this album is the best thing they’ve ever done.
Pat Flynn probably has one of my favorite voices in hardcore. To educate Andy and probably no one else reading this, dude is basically a hardcore historian and is literally a history teacher (Andy: so the hardcore Fenriz, got it) (Patrick: what the fuck ever man), but he’s also just been a sick as hell vocalist for like 20 full years now. Everything from his more traditionally sung/clean vocals (Andy, we covered his other band Fiddlehead) to him basically tackling powerviolence (Wolf Whistle with the guy from Wound Man is incredible) hits for me 100% of the time. I don’t typically think of myself as a Punisher but I would Punish the living shit out of Pat Flynn.
“Bostons” is a quintessential hardcore song for me. I even like it despite it being named after the worst city in the contiguous United States (I don’t know enough about Alaska and Hawaii’s get up to speak on them). Perfect drums, great riff, incredible vocals that you can shout along to. There are ten tracks here totaling 21 minutes and three of them hover right around, if not below, a minute and a few more are just over two minutes. However, the longer tracks, “Bostons” as mentioned, “Brotherly Love” and “Hard Bark on the Family Tree” are probably my favorites. While a lot of the best hardcore is played at a breakneck tempo, a lot of Have Heart’s best riffs are the ones with a bit of a groove to them. Just about everything here is perfect hardcore to me and I hope you agree.
Andy: Man, I don’t know what is wrong with me (outside of the millions of things already discussed) but I always thought Have Heart was like a pop-punk band? In the vein of Four Year Strong aka something I’d never ever listen to? I love being wrong and I love being educated. I can confirm that Have Heart is not a bad pop-punk band but instead a very good hardcore punk band (Patrick: is there any scenario where I’d ever send you a pop-punk album).
I am here for this album, y’all. Pop-punk-ass name with Pop-punk-ass album art denied me some fantastic hardcore for nearly 15 years. But not anymore, and I’m making up for lost time. You ever wanted to cry and mosh at the same time? Songs To Scream At The Sun is here for you. I can’t imagine these guys didn’t have one of the best live sets in the scene (Patrick: their reunion show in 2019 is billed as the highest-attended hardcore show ever at like 10K people). This just radiates the vibe that you need to see it live.
The formula here is down to a science. Anguished screams with plenty of shout-back sections and great riffs. “Bostons” is a top-tier sad boy hardcore mosh song (Patrick: maybe a top-tier hardcore song ever). “The Same Sun” is a masterclass in this type of hardcore. Just absolute perfection for what it is trying to do. Gang vocals, the ending, they just have it here.
This might be the best thing Patrick has recommended in 83 volumes of Hope You Like It (Patrick: you have been saying this too much lately but I’m glad you like it) (Andy: Maybe you’re just getting better at your job).
Carcass - Heartwork
Andy: This was one of those albums on many “Best Death Metal Albums” lists that I think Patrick would actually like - apparently, the opposite of last week’s Cryptopsy pick. Not only is he being exposed to an ‘important’ album he will probably enjoy it a good bit also. I’m so good at this. Heartwork simply rules.
Great, fun vocals. Heavy riffs. They take the time to slow it down a tad and really let it rock. This is how metal should sound. Fast, heavy, raw, and angry. They dropped some of the blast beats a bit for some melodies and it rules. The public opinion on this one is typically high for a reason. Very clearly Carcass’ best and one of the best of all time.
I love the solo on “Death Certificate,” followed by the simple riff and angry snare. Hell yeah. The solos on this album have a bit of a rock n’ roll feel to them rather than just being metal-focused. “Blind Bleeding the Blind” is lyrically a Lady Macbeth tribute that Shakespeare would think went hard (Patrick: do we think the Bard fucks with blast beats). The drums here are chaotic (Patrick: alright thanks!).
I feel like Adam Dutkiewicz of Killswitch Engage loves this album - nothing more than a hunch but it just kinda feels a bit like his style in that old-school death metal form. I like it a lot and a lot of other people do also! Maybe you’re the next one! Hope You Like It!
Patrick: This was fun. Out of the classic death metal records Andy has been shoving down my throat lately (appreciate it but move on man) (Andy: oh sorry just wait till next week definitely not going to make you listen to a bunch of death metal albums sorry), this one seems the most “my speed,” which is probably to say it has the least blast beasts and most “punk” kinda chord riffs. That’s fun! I probably didn’t like it as much as the truly great death metal Andy sent me last year (Death, Behemoth and Morbid Angel), but more so than this recent crop of canonical records.
A lot of death metal vocals border on being too deep for me (cue Andy saying some dork shit) (Andy: No I kinda agree), but Jeff Walker’s vocals on Heartwork get kinda up there in pitch and it really works. Also, the production value on this seems high. Colin Richardson is a name that I feel like I’ve seen on a bunch of heavy metal/rock metal records, and this one kinda has that sheen to it despite the songs being much harder than that style. Hell yeah!
“Doctrinal Expletives” is a great example of this imo, with guitars that sound like a billion bucks and drums where you feel like you can hear every piece of the kit instead of getting buried in the kick and crash. “No Love Lost” also really works for me. The intro riff almost feels like something that wouldn’t be out of place on an original lineup Alice in Chains record, and then Walker’s vocals come in and you immediately sink into death metal. It rules! The genre tag on wikipedia for this album is “melodic death metal” which seems like something that would probably suck but I really like this album thanks Andy, now find a new metal slant (maybe a nu-metal slant??) (Andy: omg can I!).