Labels: Indecision
Review by: Andy Malcolm
What the fuck? This is like straight edge hardcore. What am I doing with a straight edge hardcore record? Sometimes I understand why I haven’t cleared my overdraft yet – it’s because I buy records for no reason. Why on earth do I have this record? Fuckin’ weird.
Anyway, as luck would have it, this is actually really good. I could dig these guys live, totally. They remind me a lot of UK hardcore kings, Imbalance, with a touch of Minor Threat, and probably a whole bunch of Rev bands that I never got into. So, in a nutshell, OMDB utilise snarly lead vocals and the stereotypical gang backups, whilst playing catchy hardcore that contains zero percent metal, and zero percent indie rock. Straight up! No messin’!
“Be There” is reminiscent of Kid Dynamite, with strong melodies and a lot of rock, though the most cheezy friendship / “our scene rocks” type lyrics. In fact, OMDB are cheeze-meisters when it comes to lyrics, there is a track called “Drug Free Adult” for god sakes. Well, maybe they are just having some fun, as all these guys are probably super old (for HC kids) as they are ex-Unbroken and Four Walls Falling. Veterans eh!
What else? Oh, the do a “the Faith” cover, and have lots of SXE cartoons on their artwork. These actually look really cool. Best song is the last one, “No Borders, No Barriers” which totally goes off – I could easily point my fingers to this in the pit. It’s a total Minor Threat rip off stylewise, with the dude shouting “Don’t you fucking get it?” and “So what the fuck have you done?” every now and again. It also has a bunch of Dag Nasty style melodies. Very, very cool.
Rather retro, but really good if you like this sort of stuff. I personally could never own that many records that sound like this, but hey, I can’t deny that this is done really well. Check it out if you’re into Kid Dynamite and Imbalance, or just SXE hardcore done properly.