Review / 200 Words Or Less
Heads Held High
So Say We All

Crossface (2009) Michael

Heads Held High – So Say We All cover artwork
Heads Held High – So Say We All — Crossface, 2009

So Say We All is the full-length debut from Clevelanders Heads Held High. These five gentlemen have been kicking around in the city for a few years now with a couple of self-released EP's under their belts. For their debut full-length the band has continued to belt out high-octane melodic hardcore, not exactly the norm for the city that spawned Integrity, Ringworm, and Chimaira.

So Say We All is packed with eleven cuts of melodic hardcore that draws equally from the bands of the past - Gorilla Biscuits, Lifetime - and modern titans - Bane, With Honor. Musically the band has a reliance on fast guitars, two-step parts, and lots of sing-along moments. Vocally, Heads Held High differs slight from their peers with a more coarse delivery from Elliot Frank. Honestly, his style just doesn't match the music for me - there is little to no harmony to his vocals.

This is a decent full-length effort. It's not anything special but it's not horrible. Heads Held High is just another band in passing.

6.5 / 10Michael • May 27, 2009

Heads Held High – So Say We All cover artwork
Heads Held High – So Say We All — Crossface, 2009

Related news

Fail Safe To Release Heads Held High LP

Posted in Labels on February 16, 2010

Recently-posted album reviews

Generacion Suicida

Hombre Nuevo
Vitriol (2026)

On the tail end of Autogramm’s 2018 tour of Mexico (what little I remember of that week now is a lot of pulque and not a lot of sleep) I visited the one punk record store in CDMX that I found via googling where to buy bootleg punk t-shirts. I’d already visited Venas Rotas Discos earlier on the trip and … Read more

Karen Dió

Fugaz
Hopeless (2026)

Six songs. That's all Karen Dió needs on this EP. Considering the title translates roughly to fleeting, brief, or transient in Portuguese, maybe that's exactly the point. Dió's second EP doesn't hang around long enough to overstay its welcome. It arrives, makes a hell of a lot of noise, throws some gigantic hooks at you, and disappears. But there's considerably … Read more

Real Numbers

Was It Always This Way
Slumberland Records (2026)

I feel like this may be the first 12", 10-song release in my collection from Real Numbers, a dreampop meets jangle-indie rock band from Minneapolis. I'm not going to fact check my statement, because I mean it as a metaphor. Real Numbers play exactly what you'd expect based on my short description so far, but there's always something just a … Read more