ALOVE FOR ENEMIES - The Harvest

ALOVE FOR ENEMIES
The Harvest
Facedown Records
7/10




An ominous introduction entitled ‘Prologue’ gets things started on ‘The Harvest’ as Alove For Enemies gear up for the gruff, dark sounding ‘Angels Don’t Burn’. The band does a good job of mixing things around a bit. The addition of a complete stop in the middle of the track makes for an interesting point of emphasis Erich Barto has a baritone, scratchy sounding voice that fits the band’s dark tones quite well.

The group manages to pull off some heavy antics on ‘Smoke Screen’, and brings a very core feeling to ‘The Hour Of Decision’. Lyrically, the band is dialectically “Good”. They emphasize Jesus Christ in their lyrics, going so far as to refer to their messiah by name several times, which is unusual for a band which sounds so completely dark and ominous.
You’ll find some decent guitar melodies here as well as many pit igniting riffs and beats. The group has a fair sense of arrangement. It sounds as if they made a concerted effort to keep their songs interesting. This is a band that is obviously trying to get a message across to people with their music.

If you find religion offensive, this might not be a band you’re going to want to get into, at least if you’re paying attention to that sort of thing and the same thing could be said for bands that are the complete opposite of Alove For Enemies thematically, but their lyrical content is certainly a factor that stands out, like it or not.

The crushing axe work on ‘Blood Covenant’ is like a wall of sound which simply cannot be denied, providing a strong backing for the raspy singing of Barto. The band is really riff oriented. You won’t hear many melodic guitar parts or solos here, but a lot of thrashing rhythms that are tight, heavy and very powerful.

‘The Truth Of Trumpets’ is hard hitting and contains HxC gang vocals that accent the tracks powerful chorus, making for a strong close to the disc. Alove For Enemies will appeal to fans of heavy music in general. The hardcore elements added into the group’s music show the roots and influences of the band, but they certainly have a large amount of crossover appeal.

If the pit is where you live, ‘The Harvest’ makes for one Hell of a… that is, Heavenly hardcore soundtrack!

By: Mick Griffin