There's an awkward goofiness to the Start Today album, or any of the first fifteen Revelation releases, that will always make them powerfully classic. None of the bands at the time really knew what they were doing both musically and culturally. These were just a bunch of bored kids, mostly in middle and high school, who felt alienated by their peer group and had enough tenacity to write songs about it. Almost everything after, with a few exceptions here and there, is merely a cheap attempt to rehash a sensation that can simply never be relived authentically. And this is why At All Costs fails as a hardcore band. This isn't to say they're a bad band, or that all current hardcore bands are attempting a youth crew revival, but the innocence that created the sound no longer exists.
One feature that makes Connecticut's At All Costs stands out is their inclusion of horns. Think River City Rebel's first album mixed with Ten Yard Fight. Unfortunately, the brass section come across as rather gimmicky, something to attach to a bio or a flyer to draw in listeners. Most of the songs simply mimic the chord progression of the guitars, which makes for more layered songs that still come across as stale and unmoving, the very opposite of what a hardcore should be. Subtract the horns and you're left with mediocre hardcore similar to In My Eyes, Floorpunch, and a lot of the late nineties hardcore bands.
As a Connecticut native I cannot help but compare them to another Connecticut group, The Flaming Tsunamis who, too, try to meld genres by combing horns with a heavier sound. While The Flaming Tsunamis do it with a little more grace, probably due to their ska roots, the fact is heavy music with horns just doesn't sound all that good.
Given the description so far I'm sure most can already guess what kind of lyrical content is contained on the Direction EP, but for those who don't, let me explain. When this style of music first blossomed (see first paragraph), there was a sincerity in the lyrics that was like nothing else out at the time. Since then a lot of the content has been so recycled that it's rhetoric has become tired. Surely in the last twenty years some new perspective of being a hardcore kid must have developed.
The word sincerity gets tossed a lot in hardcore, and I'm sure these gentlemen can back up everything they put on record, but the truth is worn out lyrics and tired riffs will never be interesting, regardless of how many horns you add to freshen it up.
