I love surprises. Well, actually, that’s a complete and utter lie. Unless they’re really good surprises, in which case, I do love surprises, but if someone was to turn up on my doorstep unannounced and punch me in the face, cover me in petrol, set me on fire and run away giggling like a small child, I’d have to say, when quizzed, that im not a big fan of surprises. Anyway, I digress, what I was trying to say was ‘I love surprises’. Well, unless of course…no, never mind.
Well anyway, this little gem was a very pleasant surprise (unlike a surprise visit from a violent, childlike arsonist) when it popped through my letterbox one cold winter morning. Modern Life Is War, as you can probably guess from the name of the band, are slightly on the hardcore side of things when it comes to pigeonholing them. Well, I say slightly, I mean very. This is reasonably fast, aggressive, doom-laden, screamy hardcore. When I say screamy hardcore, however, I mean from the Count Me Out/Hope Conspiracy side of things, not the ‘pop punk with an attitude’ kind of screamy hardcore. And thank god for that.
Granted, on the whole, ‘My Love. My Way’ very rarely strays from it’s roots and in the grand scale of things, is about as original as a TV Reality Show packed with boring, insipid morons, but then who needs originality when you’ve got pure, passionate melodic hardcore like this?
‘Is it wrong to want to walk away when every day of you life looks like decay’. There’s a cheerful little excerpt from ‘1st & Ellen’, the closing track of the album and one of the best numbers on the record. From that little line you can probably summarise, along with the band name and the album title, not to mention the song titles, that Modern Life Is War are certainly not from the Stretch Armstrong/Good Clean Fun stable of preaching positivity through hardcore, and by god, you’d be right. But when you have the likes of ‘Momentum’ (What Atreyu would and should sound like if they learnt to scream and growl properly), ‘Self Preservation’ (I love songs that start with a drum-roll then proceed to kick your arse into next week for three minutes) and ‘Yesterdays Trash’ (52 seconds of blood curdling fast paced hardcore joy) you can be in whatever damn mood you want!
It’s not pretty, it hasn’t got endless metallic solo’s all over the place, and they probably won’t be seen in a press photo without at least half the members folding their arms, but slap my ass and call me Charlie, this is a good, honest record. If you like your vocalists hoarse and pissed off, your drums pounding and your hardcore crunchy, ‘My Love. My Way could well be the post-Christmas pick me up you’ve been looking for.
Ross
www.modernlifeiswar.net
www.reflectionsrecords.com