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Debtor

Bloodseeds

Written by: EK on 08/07/2011 23:17:36

Pennsylvania's Debtor have been rising through the East Coast hardcore rankings, slugging their way into the spotlight. With new record "Blood Seeds" coming from Blood&Ink records you'd expect nothing less than a passionate barrage of hard-hitting hardcore and you wouldn't be wrong. The album pounds venomously from track to track, vocalist Alan Popoli viscerally bellowing his potent lyrics like a sermon behind a contemporary soundtrack.

Stylistically the band incorporate a familiar blend of punk and post-hardcore into their sound, the album breathes the slick production of their contemporaries and plays like the soundtrack of tribulation it was intended to. The viciousness of the screaming is sometimes glorified at the expense of the audibility of the lyrics, and this ambiguity is somewhat discouraging although none-the-less impressive. The songs on the album are abrupt and well paced, the opening track "Job's Lament" ushering in the commencement of the twenty-three minute bruiser. The songs are well written although slightly predictable, at times they almost seem to lack originality and faintly allude to a mediocrity that threatens to linger as the record progresses.

However, what saves the album, what brings it from the brink of mediocrity, are the lyrics. It is often commonplace for a Christian Hardcore band to preach the untold fortunes of worshipping God, but instead, Debtor present pleas against heartfelt personal struggle. Not unlike the other great hardcore bands of the moment, catalysed by a catalogue of innocence and experience, Debtor elucidate their unique perspective through their transcendent declaration of despondency. The tracks "Bare Heights" and "Bleed" exhibit the band at their most consequential. The final track "Witness", an acoustic homage to the more elegant side of dejection, whispers the record into its conclusion leaving a more somber, reflective note in air. "Blood Seeds" is a good album, but it breathes of a band that are yet to reach their full potential, yet to carve themselves out a niche in the saturated hardcore scene. Although their message is the definition of poetic potency, their musicianship hasn't quite reached that level of transcendence, yet.

Download: Blue Bell, Bleed
For the fans of: Strongarm, Thin Ice, xLooking Forwardx.
Listen:Bandcamp

Release Date 12.07.2011
Blood & Ink Records