Soldiers End of Days

Ahh, yes. Trustkill: everyone's favorite has-been of a hardcore record label. Sure, a number of Trustkill releases were extremely influential in years past, but it seems like the Trustkill of current times is more focused on winning the let's-see-who-can-sign-the-least-impressive-band competition with the guys over at Ferret. Bedlight for Blue Eyes vs. Heavy Heavy Low Low Fightstar vs. Gwen Stacy What about Memphis May Fire vs. Foxy Shazam Each one of those is far too close to call, but it all adds up to a lot of head-shaking at two labels who once played an integral part in the hardcore and metal scenes. And it also makes this Soldiers record all the more interesting, as it turns out that Trustkill hasn't completely abandoned picking up new hardcore acts. Sporting two current members of This is Hell, Soldiers play an extremely straightforward brand of tough guy hardcore, mixing the sound of labelmates Terror with Madball. A few comparisons could be made to This is Hell, but the majority of End of Days shies away from most things melodic and focuses on heavy grooves, blatantly obvious breakdowns and crew-friendly lyrics. "Even Worse" begins with up-tempo drumming and a huge dose of drop-d riffing, managing to resemble a slightly less fierce Blacklisted at points."Relentless" takes a gritty bass groove and turns the track into a hardcore anthem around lyrics like, "Talk is cheap / False threats don't mean a thing / Your fucking judgments don't mean shit to me." They're playing with a tired hardcore recipe that has been done countless times, yet Soldiers manage to make it decently memorable. It's unapologetically straightforward, conventional, and crowd-friendly, but hey, that's the point. I can respect that. But naturally, records looking to replicate a certain existing style can be a bit of a boring listening experience. End of Days is great in small chunks, as its indulgence in everything hardcore will be sure to appeal to fans of the tough guy subgenre, but twelve tracks of it might be a little much to swallow all at once. And then there's the rap track that was snuck into the end of "Smoke and Mirrors" that isn't really helping much, either. This is simply a niche record, one that will mainly appeal to fans of heavy, predictable hardcore who love the chugs, the half-times, and the group vocals of the genre. It's admirable to really nail down a certain musical formula, but most are just not going to get that excited about it. Bottom Line: Trustkill has shown that they're still interested in putting out a hardcore record once in a while with Soldiers' End of Days, an album that does a nice job of hitting all the main elements of an enjoyable tough guy hardcore record. Unfortunately, listeners will likely realize that they've heard this record ten times over, leaving only the die-hard fans of the genre to get into this one. Not bad, but not great.