Now this is more like it. After the slow burn of the opening track "Raise My Flag," The Guilt Show go for the throat with a violent thrashing attack of blitzkrieg type hardcore that reminds me of a cross between The Suicide File and Striking Distance. How awesome is that? Well yeah, it is awesome.
The Guilt Show, like their label mates Run With the Hunted, are another hardcore band on the political tip. But unlike Run With the Hunted, The Guilt Show doesn't try to bog you down with political vagueness. Instead they just goes for a quick swift kick in the nuts, lyrically. Then The Guilt Show offers up explanations to their lyrics in case you weren't quite clear on just what the point was.
Before They Know We're All Dead hits you like sledgehammer to the forehead and never relents. Before They Know We're All Dead is chock full of speedy beats, chunky guitars, the all-important decent mosh parts, and vocals that are on the high end of the register but never annoying. Some tracks on Before They Know We're All Dead do take a more The Hope Conspiracy feel to them but without feeling like a complete rip off. The Guilt Show just knows how to write a good heavy, noisy, hardcore song by trimming off the fat and going straight of the jugular with every chord struck.
Before They Know We're Dead is a great hardcore album and hopefully will get heard by a decent amount of ears even though The Guilt Show is an American band on an Italian label. I hope to hear more from this band in the future. Before They Know We're Dead is my unexpected surprised of 2009.
