Norway's The Hate Colony are probably a young band; no idea when they were formed, but their style certainly is modern. The name of the game for this band is mixing post-thrash metal and melodic death metal with metalcore antics.

Okay, how many is still reading this review? We probably lost many readers because of words "metalcore antics"... THC's (fuck, there was a hidden message in their name?!) music sounds like a clash of Swedish and US stuff. From Sweden it is the melodic death metal portion, that quite often steals the show. It's not too much about sucking off In Flames or Dark Tranquillity, but it's just generally very Swedish-sounding. Okay, there are these modern In Flames moments, but thankfully not that many. THC were influenced more like by older melodic death eras. Certainly they do not enter those darker areas, but stick to upbeat themes. The post-thrash element comes from the likes of Lamb Of God and The Haunted (especially 'Cottonmouth'). I should add, that both the melodic death metal and the post-thrash proportions are played with some vigour and fierceness. Then there is this groove element, that comes from the US soil, and think about Pantera, Hellyeah and everything between them, but with much less redneck-ish vibes. Generally, THC sound more Swedish than US, and that's only a positive thing.

The band like to spice up their songs with bits of electronics, that do not feel totally alien in this context, plus some beautiful archaic-sounding acoustic guitar on 'Diggin' Deeper's intro is very cool. I find technical and scrupulous lead and solo guitar work uplifting. These guys aren't apprentices with their instruments. Both the drums and the bass guitar are also played deftly, without forgetting energetic feel. The band's technical competence also shows in sometimes rather adventurous turns in their compositions. Everything isn't about verse-bridge-chorus type songwriting, and this is definitely the right choice the band made, mostly because the songs roll on nicely. The vocals include all kinds of throat-torturing styles, from growl to distorted screaming, which does sound unhealthy, but is too high-pitched and thin for my liking. Too core, methinks. That's the thing about the lyrics, too; life's struggles from nasty relationships to drugs.

The cover art is metalcore-ish, mainly because of the band's logo, and looks a bit cheap. The production is the worst aspect about the album. It does kick ass, in a way, but there are some things that bring it down. First, the triggered drums, which sound flat, machiney and snappy. No good. The guitar tones are a tad blunt, not brutal enough, but do their job.

This is filled with energetic and partly technical performances, and the guitarists deserve a special mention here. The songs aren't too typical and neither too similar to each other. This suits for fans of many styles, and for my liking the band stick to metal thing very firmly, and do not tip towards core stuff too heavily. The production work ain't that bad, no! So if you like modern-sounding thrashy melodic death metal meets metalcore (for a zillionth time, got to admit that), then you could do so much worse than checking out The Hate Colony.

Rating: 6+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
11/21/2013 13:13