Belgium eh. Good old Belgium. Don’t do a lot do they? Kinda just sit there, happily creating chocolates to marvel at and city’s to visit on backpackers travels. Yup, good old Belgium. The last thing you would expect is an ear splitting hardcore band which depict demons rising from hell on the front of their CD right?
Well Rise and Fall are out to prove there is more to their homeland than chocolates and hostels for the inquisitive. But unfortunately it isn’t the best advert, although it does certainly have its moments. For the duration of the eight tracks, you really do feel as if there are one to many lost opportunities and the band fail to shift out of second gear for the most part. It is aggressive, it is in your face, but it just lacks a certain spark for it to really set it apart from the crowds. Arguably the best track on the album is ‘Turn and Run’, which we have to wait all the way to the end for. Throughout the twenty-odd minutes it chugs, spits and growls and while these are certain factors that should be a given for a hardcore record, sometimes you just want that little bit more. Collectively there is enough talent here from previous bands (Kingpin, The Deal, Spirit of Youth) to forge ahead and make a charge for the mantle of European hardcore kings, but while they make tracks in the vain of the tawdry ‘As the City Burns’ and not the stomping ‘Bottom Feeder’ it maybe a difficult road that lies ahead.
Rise and Fall are by no means bad. I don’t want to seem like I am berating them because of my petty self indulgences, but there are far better bands on the scene that do this type of hardcore. As the great Roy Walker said, “it’s good, but it’s just not there”.
Jay
www.riseandfall.org
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