Backfire!
Still Dedicated
I Scream
They may be from Sweden, but they sure sound like they’re from New York, so I guess that’s the trend in hardcore these days. Geographical nitpickings aside, Backfire! represent the global hardcore community well on Still Dedicated, offering up 12 swift kicks of NYHC that, for as derivative as they may be, are as head-down, mosh-pit-ready as they come. The formula’s there down cold (c’mon, you know it, already!), the chops to back it up are dually there, as are the muscle-flexing, finger-pointing gang choruses that earmark most hardcore, so you pretty much have heard Still Dedicated, if you catch my (cold) drift. But for fans of the genre, that’s usually not a bad thing, ‘cuz “discriminating” ain’t a word to be found in their dictionaries (damn these P.C. times•), and that’s about as much accuracy as you’re gonna get outta me. If you get a chance, at least peep the seriously raucous “Freedom,” a youth crew anthem guaranteed to stick in your head for weeks and undoubtedly one of the single best straight-up HC songs I’ve heard in many weary years.
I Scream, Broekstraat 10 / 1730 Kobbegem, Belgium, http://www.iscreamrecords.com
