Hoods - Pray For Death - CD (2003)

Labels: Victory
Review by: Tom Hughes

This shit is depressing. As much as hardcore means a million different things to a million different people, it’s frightening to think there’s any common ground between Black Flag and this meat-headed hateporn horseshit. Hoods, from Sacramento, bash out tough guy metal hardcore of the stupidest and ugliest kind, all with that weirdly upwardly mobile (sponsors, street teams, “œlifestyle promotions”) Victory slant. The music is so grey it barely registers: nondescript pro moshcore; fuck all but a whole lot of pneumatic, downtuned impotence, veering gracelessly from done-to-death NYHC chug to shit guitar-shop metal. Even the pulverising, merciless ill-will of the lyrics “” an apparent hymn of hate to the writer’s parents, slavering threats of “˜twenty-on-one’ crew rumbles, and so on “” doesn’t seem to have the force of real fury so much as that of some kind of posi-baiting anger fetish or adolescent out-hating impulse. Always preferred hats.