Enjoyed the Mace demo quite a bit, and here we have the cassette version of an LP that I didn’t even know about. Nice! Between the demo and this there seems to have been a tightening up and a thickening of sound, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is anything like slick – the music’s still as furious and dangerous-sounding as ever, and though there might be 18 tracks (several of which featured on the aforementioned tape) the energy levels are so high that it never feels like overload. I’m minded of the knuckleheaded thuggery of early Boston and early NYC, the chunked-up focus of early Rev (think Side By Side, Chain Of Strength and that first SOIA 7”) and, somehow, the vodka-trailing spectre of ‘Scandinavian Jawbreaker’. The blend is a potent one and hits as hard as you’d hope: a sneering, scathing slice of hardcore powered by righteous indignation and world-ending rage.
