Labels: Level Plane
Review by: Joe Caithness
Ok what do you get if you take the energy of early 90s hardcore punk that edged into the early emo scene, the production style of a modern hardcore punk album and lots of snotty energy? You get Books Lie’s new offering.
Books Lie seem to be doing exactly what bands of their style do, they have taken hardcore punk, given it a twist, and expanded that twist over time and now I can honestly say Books Lie is one of those bands you just listen to and know what your getting, and you know it’s just gonna rock you!
The LP is called Hall of Fame of Fire, why? I don’t know, but it sounds quite metal, never fear though, this is straight up rocking shit! The LP kicks off with a slow rocking track led by a melodic bassline and some frantic yelps from the new singer which builds up nicely, but never explodes, which is probably what track 2 “Cowards will give to get rid of you” is for, awesome 2 bar bass intro and then a crunching chorus hits you so hard, you actually can’t stop listening. The next track “The greatest christmas gift ever (return of the king)” apart from its interesting title, is a nice less frantic punk rock song with some variations on the guitar tone. And of course because its Books Lie you get your token funky electronica track at the end of side one, it’s all good!
Side 2 opens a bit more rocked up that it’s previous side, and also hold perhaps the albums best tune, and maybe even the second best Books Lie tune to “Honkified Nightmare” off the Weep LP, yes it’s that cool. “Thats not god thats thunder” runs with a dirty bass riff low down on the neck of the instrument, and some cool breakbeats from the drummer, and it works into a brutal riff with swirls and swirls into a crescendo. Now here’s my favourite thing off the LP, the last tune is a negative slow punk rocking anthem with snotty jaded lines such as
“its about time we got our friends together, drink some beer, smoke some weed, build a bomb, blow some shit up, it’s about time we put our heads together, get down on our fucking knees and smash some shit against the ground”
All in all this is an awesome little LP, and I hope there will be more to follow from these snotty hardcore punkers.