Hatebreed - In Ashes They Shall Reap [Album Review & Music Video]

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Why a self-titled album? Perhaps Hatebreed felt this year’s To The Lions covers album had separated them from their main objective. Perhaps, as this is the first original album to feature their newcomer guitarist Wayne Lozinak, they decided they are the whole new breed of hate! Perhaps it’s that they’ve been changing their sound, something that vocalist Jamey Jasta recently mentioned: “We added a few brutal new ingredients and we’re more than amped on the results.” Take your pick.

The production is, as always, simply brutal. With Zeuss again at the helm, producing, engineering and mixing the thing, it’s a bass-loaded monster that will shake your cabs apart. The vocals and guitars sit cosseted within this hammering comfort zone but are not exactly smothered. With the occasional wild solo (yes, solos) there is plenty there to worry the tweeters aswell. Occasionally, the mixing effects go overboard and become a little intrusive, by splitting verses into cloaked and uncloaked or by providing an crackling phased intro (Pollution To The Soul) or exit to a track with a sudden sonic meltdown (Not My Master). However, if there’s one album that you need to demonstrate the capabilities of your sound system, it’s THIS Hatebreed album.

Within all this, the music is solid Hatebreed doing exactly what Hatebreed do best. Jasta’s as pissed off as ever, belching out his anger in one continuous, monosyllabic assault on your lugholes. Yelping “you fucking bleed now” as he introduces the killer Everyone Bleeds Now, screaming the oddly eloquent lines “into oceans of hurt, over mountains of grief” during Through The Thorns and roars “we were destined to fuck, you know how hard to touch” during the unhinged As Damaged As Me.

And yet there’s those added “brutal ingredients” popping up every now and again. The breakdowns are suddenly a huge feature of the overall structure, at times, slipping back through the gears to an almost neanderthal pace. It’s something that Jasta has spoken about: “The speed is there, which we even kicked up a few notches on some of the songs, but the groove and slower tempos are represented.” It’s as if their sound has developed from being an obnoxious teenage rowdy into a thirty-something beefcake jock with a penchant for violence. And then there’s whole tracks that become part of the makeover - Every Lasting Scar dredges up a chugged riff, throws in gang vocals to accompany Jasta’s harmonising chorus hook, and sinfully simplifies the structure and drumbeats to create a chunk of sickly, radio-friendly rock; Undiminished proves to be a sombre melodic, instrumental breather (with a twinkling piano exit to boot) requiring a liner-note pep talk from Jasta to ram home the point it’s trying to make.

Having blown us to pieces with the utter intensity of their last piece of original songwriting, Supremacy, Hatebreed have opened their minds a fraction, let their defences drop, and allowed just a little of the outside world in. With this album they have clearly reciprocated and put a little bit more of themselves into it and that shouldn’t be a bad thing now, should it?

The band’s debut video for “In Ashes They Shall Reap” debuted a few weeks ago on Headbangers Ball and has since been added into regular MTV2 rotation, a first in HATEBREED’s 14-year career.

Hatebreed - In Ashes They Shall Reap Music Video
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