Band:	Slapshot
Album:	Tear It Down
Style:	Hardcore
Release date:	2005

01. Relight the Fire
02. Fuck New York
03. Terrorized
04. Rap Sucks
05. Tear It Down
06. Spread the Fear
07. Hardcore Rules

I guess legendary Boston hard core act Slapshot were still pissed in 2005, some 20 years after their founding. Very pissed. So very pissed that they needed to reconvene, and condense their rage and anger into the music that makes the Tear It Down E.P., which sees seven songs whip past in a scant 22 minutes.

The album kicks immediately into action with the bone-jarring "Relight The Fire", an anthem basically summing up their own return; stoking their inner fire and getting back into action. As one of the elder statesmen of this site, it's a track that resonates with me, in so much as allowing myself to get pissed off, worked up, and ready to fight back and reconquer aspects of my life in which I allowed the forces of the world to grind me to complacency.

Now that the "we're back!" anthem is done, the band pound out six more tracks that are as simple, straightforward, and punishing as a crosscheck to the glass. The remaining half dozen songs see two basic speeds - fast and faster. Nothing particularly fancy to see here, pounding power chords, thundering basslines, and pummeled drums all coalesce and give Jack "Choke" Kelly the backdrop to bark into the mic like a pitbull, railing at anything that was pissing him off at the time.

His targets included serious issues, such as the post 9-11 atmosphere in America ("Terrorized", "Spread The Fear"), B.A.G's* in "Rap Sucks" ("baggy pants and sideways baseball cap/and you're as white as wonderbread/you look like shit and you talk like shit/one day I hope someone shoots you in the face"), and even the rules surrounding the scene itself in "Hardcore Rules". And New York. Apparently he doesn't care too much for it, as the title of the EP's second track, "Fuck New York" would suggest.

For sake of apples and bowling ball comparison for those of you who are unfamiliar with this style of music and need a point of reference, this is probably the hardcore equivalent to Panzer Division Marduk... only without the WW2 sound effects. And a meaner vocalist.

So for some of you it might be worth checking out. For metal "purists", maybe not.



* B.A.G.'s - Brian Austin Green in the original Beverly Hills 90210. Tried to represent but it's pretty hard to pass off hard when from Tha Hillz, yo! Visual Aid.