Find Him And Kill Him Cut Them To Pieces

Now that 2003 has come to a close, one thing is abundantly clear: hardcore is breaking into the mainstream. In 2003, AFI took bands like Bleeding Through, Death By Stereo, and Throwdown on tour with them, Jamey Jasta became MTV2's spokesperson for all aggressive music, and videos from Eighteen Visions, Atreyu, Hatebreed, As I Lay Dying, and Everytime I Die were in semi-regular rotation on both MTV2 and Fuse. Some might argue about how "hardcore" some of these aforementioned bands are, but the reality is that hardcore and hardcore related bands are starting to make it in the industry. While I'm not trying to shit on anyone's success, nor am I trying to be the police of what is and isn't hardcore, but you're a damn fool if you don't think there have been a rash of bands doing everything they can in their power to get some of this success. While many bands have began to shift gears in order to try and catch some mainstream notoriety, Find Him And Kill Him released "Cut Them To Pieces," which aside from being one of the best records of 2003, is a brutally honest reminder to everyone about what hardcore really is, in a time when a lot of people are forgetting what it's all about. Find Him And Kill Him shatter a lot of played-out themes and false realities, and offer up nine minutes and fifty-four seconds of some of the greatest hardcore ever written. Find Him And Kill Him musically are short, fast, loud, and noisy. No metal, no chugga, just blazing fast verses, thrashy blast beats, and great mid tempo mosh parts. The average song length on "Cut Them To Pieces" is forty five seconds, with the longest song on the record clocking in at a minute and five seconds. Musically, the group is akin to Infest, or a less out-of-control Charles Bronson. Nonetheless, I haven't been this satisfied with nine minutes and fifty-four seconds music in a long, long time. For music as aggressive and brutal as this, vocals that are even more aggressive and brutal are needed. There isn't a single person more perfect for this role than FHAKH's Spencer Gooch. His lyrics are honest, unforgiving, and unapologetic. And when he screams, you can hear every ounce of his body straining. Lyrically, Spencer addresses problems within our scene and society at large. Perhaps one of the most moving songs on the entire record is "Let's Put The End In Friend," that address the false idea that unity within hardcore is possible. Twenty-six seconds into this record, when Gooch screams "we're not family, we're not family, we're not family, we're not even fucking friends," it really helps one accept the possibility that unity is an apparent farce, and that it's time to grow the fuck up. Bottom Line: Hardcore started out as fast, loud, angry, aggressive music that stood out from the rest of society and got into people's faces. The music was radical, the politics were radical, the crowd reactions were radical; hardcore was a radical movement to be a part of. Twenty-seven some odd years later, even when society and industry have grown more tolerant and accepting of hardcore, and hardcore even has a chance of becoming a part of the mainstream, Find Him And Kill Him sound as radical and insane as the Bad Brains did in 1979. You need this album, and that's the end of fucking that.