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Pro-Pain - Voice Of Rebellion review



Reviewer:
6.0

26 users:
7.73
Band: Pro-Pain
Album: Voice Of Rebellion
Release date: June 2015


01. Voice Of Rebellion
02. No Fly Zone
03. Righteous Annihilation
04. Souls On Fire
05. Take It To The Grave
06. Age Of Disgust
07. Bella Morte
08. Cognitive Dissonance
09. Blade Of The Cursed
10. Crushed To Dust
11. Enraged
12. Hellride
13. DNR (Do Not Resuscitate)
14. Fuck This Life

Everyone's got limits.

I've reached mine three hours ago. It's simple, if I hear one more gang shout you're going to read about what I did in the paper tomorrow.

"Why so angry?"


- Because this will look like a long rant.
- Because your enjoyment of this album is going to be very, very relative to how familiar you are with Pro-Pain and brocore in general.
- Because I'm going to have a hard time focusing on this album alone.
- Because I still can't tell the songs on this release apart even after a gazillion painful spins.

I think the only way to be able to tell Pro-Pain songs from each other is to have them carbon-14 dated anyway. Okay, I'm exaggerating again: old Pro-Pain (up to Act Of God or around that period) was plenty recognizable and vicious, which helped them forge the recognition they have now. However, after fifteen - FIFTEEN - albums, you just can't win. Either you change completely and get shunned for being a "sell-out", or you don't change enough and you get talentless twits like me complaining about hearing almost the same album over and over again. Even if there has been several line-up overhauls during the long span of the band's existence. Even if albums like Fistful Of Hate in 2004 and especially Age Of Tyranny in 2007 were deliciously heavier, grungier, melodic, groovy, and almost fresh compared to their usual formula. You can say I'm being unfair since it's the main composer, the last remaining original member and the signature of the group, but if Pro-Pain's sound weren't always so over-powered by Gary's forever unchanging, unvaried barking vocals, I would hold my punches and treat every release as unique.

Taken one by one, the songs that make this fifteenth opus a whole are not of lesser quality than usual: they are still guided by the same stick-it-to-the-man spirit that's kept the scene more or less alive for decades. It just happens that there are fourteen of them, all pretty similar. There is no denying that Gary Meskil and his pals know how to do their job - that's the least you could ask at this point. The stomping rhythms are the ideal thing to get elbow-faced to during a live show and just makes you want to pump the volume to the max. The whole thing flows nicely, there are no faux pas, no pause, no slowing down: it's a non-stop middle finger held closely in front of your face.

So here we are, with forty-four minutes of chorus-and-gang-shout-heavy hardcore that would have sounded more vindictive if it were 1990 weren't as polished. The New York crossover veterans have always written very energetic, riff-driven angry music, but there's always been a sense of restraint and control. I just wish they could drop that already and go all out, introduce some chaos in there. Voice Of Rebellion - this is the album they just released that I'm trying to review here, in case you got lost - also showcases a duller production than its predecessors, which further takes some edge out of the experience.

Unfortunately, that's about it. I sincerely can't find more to say. If you haven't reached your limit of Pro-Pain and Pro-Pain accessories, you'll enjoy Voice Of Rebellion the same way you have enjoyed the 578 same albums they released before this. But I'm no Hank Hill*, I've had enough.

*For the uncultured swine that didn't get that joke, click here.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 8
Songwriting: 6
Originality: 2
Production: 7

Written by Ilham | 10.07.2015




Comments

Comments: 13   Visited by: 158 users
10.07.2015 - 16:36
Rating: 5
Ilham
Giant robot
Written by deadone on 10.07.2015 at 16:27

Enjoyable read as always.

To be honest I find most bands to be like this. Many are completely stale and some at best tinker around the edges in a meaningless kind of way. After all how many Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Devil Driver, Kataklysm, Deicide, Obituary, Helloween, Rage, Running Wild, etc etc albums do you need before all the non-essential ones blur into a mess?

Makes life miserable for a reviewer - sure the album is listenable but it sounds just like all the other identical and also listenable albums out there.

Thanks for your recurring compliments. You understood where it all came from. It's hard to keep a balance between saying what's rightfully positive, and yet still point out how un-essential the release is. Makes you feel guilty - almost. But music is written in a context, and it's important, at least to me (and you).
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10.07.2015 - 16:41
Belegûr
Arise In Might!
"If you haven't reached your limit of Pro-Pain and Pro-Pain accessories"

I'm so glad you added a Hank Hill reference haha
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10.07.2015 - 17:01
Rating: 5
Ilham
Giant robot
Written by Belegûr on 10.07.2015 at 16:41

"If you haven't reached your limit of Pro-Pain and Pro-Pain accessories"
I'm so glad you added a Hank Hill reference haha

I forced myself to kept it for end, because otherwise I'd have had to say "Pro-Pain and Pro-Pain accessories" at least 10 times haha. But I had to say it at least once, butane is a bastard gas and people have to know that.

Written by deadone on 10.07.2015 at 16:50

Totally agree. Writing reviews for these kind of albums actually contributed to my recent review burnout. I ran out of different things to say for albums that essentially regurgitated the same old tired cliches.

In some ways it's like reviewing the 13,563,275th Model T Ford out of 15 million plus produced! It's still a Model T Ford!
[Ford T img]

I feel you! Especially since you wrote many in a short while. I had to take a break too.

Great analogy, I'll try to remember that.
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10.07.2015 - 20:54
Cynic Metalhead
Paisa Vich Nasha
Did you ran out of ideas how to start a first para of review? =P

Nah, kidding.

Good review. I agree with you on why Pro-Pain doesn't change the stature. They keep delivering songs from same path.
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12.07.2015 - 11:34
s_t_s

Will listen to this album out of curisosity but to be honest I've never really been into Pro Pain. The only album I still listen to (tho very seldom) is Content Under Pressure.
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12.07.2015 - 20:53
crucifiedjesus

My pro-pain ship sailed back in "the truth hurts" days. Havent really heard much of anything since then. Dont think i will jump back on board with this one after reading the review
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13.07.2015 - 00:09
Rating: 5
Ilham
Giant robot
Written by Cynic Metalhead on 10.07.2015 at 20:54

Did you ran out of ideas how to start a first para of review? =P
Nah, kidding.

Good review. I agree with you on why Pro-Pain doesn't change the stature. They keep delivering songs from same path.

I actually did that on purpose .

Good to see I'm not the only one .
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13.07.2015 - 07:38
X-Ray Rod
Skandino
I feel like I need to watch King Of The Hill... I was way too small when it came out in Chile so I never really understood the humor.
Oh and the band. I honestly haven't heard them at all but I have a low tolerance level for the hardcore of the bro kind. If there are too many gang-vocal present (a couple in an album is fine, I don't mind)... I probably wont mind checking it out.

Thanks for the review though!
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Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29
Like you could kiss my ass
Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
Rod, let me love you.
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22.07.2015 - 12:33
ScreamingSteelUS
Editor-in-Chief
"Brocore" tells me just about everything I need to know. I've read this thing about half a dozen times and I keep forgetting to comment, but I really like this review, Ghostface Killham.
----
"Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader

I'm the Agent of Steel.
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30.07.2015 - 22:17
Rating: 5
Ilham
Giant robot
Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 22.07.2015 at 12:33

"Brocore" tells me just about everything I need to know. I've read this thing about half a dozen times and I keep forgetting to comment, but I really like this review, Ghostface Killham.

Not to be confused with "douchecore"!

Always a pleasure to have you around. It seems, you and I, SparklingSpot, are in the middle of a revieweromance. So who's Turk? Who's JD?

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07.08.2015 - 02:21
ScreamingSteelUS
Editor-in-Chief
Written by Ilham on 30.07.2015 at 22:17

Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 22.07.2015 at 12:33

"Brocore" tells me just about everything I need to know. I've read this thing about half a dozen times and I keep forgetting to comment, but I really like this review, Ghostface Killham.

Not to be confused with "douchecore"!

Always a pleasure to have you around. It seems, you and I, SparklingSpot, are in the middle of a revieweromance. So who's Turk? Who's JD?



I'd have to be JD. I'm skinny, pasty, awkward, and childlike. Just call me DreamingSquirrelJD, Killham Billham.
----
"Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader

I'm the Agent of Steel.
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07.09.2015 - 22:48
Rating: 8
Guib
Thrash Talker
Aww that's sad, I actually enjoy this release, oh well... but then again, I never get enough of that kind of sound.
----
- Headbanging with mostly clogged arteries to that stuff -
Guib's List Of Essential Albums
- Also Thrash Paradise
Thrash Here
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02.03.2019 - 13:32
cynicoren

The ACDC of hardcore.
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