Well, it was raining in the Yankees – Red Sox game that I was listening to on Real Audio so I figured I had better find something else to do whilst I wait for the rain clouds to lift over Yankee Stadium. My options: write a review, or play Morrowind. I was strongly edging towards the latter when I remembered I hadn’t updated Collective for ages now, and I figured I would write a review instead.
Ok, straight to the point. I think this is the best Orchid record yet. It is also their last record. I am not quite sure why I like this more than anything else they did. I think it is just has a little more variation and innovation to what they used to do. It still features their awesome monster guitar sound that pounds and pounds, but they are less prone to all out chaos now, and there are moments that are almost serene by comparison to their old selves. It’s tighter, more controlled, more explosive even. I like how there are more sung vocals now, boosts the emo quotient! Some songs have parts that fit with bands like the Vida Blue, yet they still retain their crunchy heaviness from their previous records. The lyrics are pissed off and jaded and they come across like they have been written by hardcore kids who are getting a bit older and are starting to work things out, they still love hardcore and what it can represent but some elements of it just bug them, I like how they included the song explanations too. I think this is some of the appeal of this record to me – the spirit and the drive to do what the fuck they wanted to rather than what they were expected to. They really set this one on fire when I was just expecting 25 minutes of the same stuff they had been doing prior to this.
Yeah, this is a fucking awesome record (one of the best hardcore records I have heard this year) and bands are gonna want to sound like the crazy version of Orchid for many years to come. They’ll be missing the point though.