While She Can't Sleep
Straight out of the northern wastes of England come four lads intent on showing the world just how much pent up fury can come from living in a town like Grimsby. Black Dogs have an insatiable hunger that comes across immediately in the unrelenting barrage of groove-heavy metallic hardcore that is their debut album. The emphasis on the groove is immediately palpable, as Hellhole wastes no time in easing you in, but rather shoves you violently (and fortunately metaphorically) into a pit of ravenous hounds.
This formula continues mercilessly for the entire duration of the album, and there are no breathers. At all. The riffs are memorable, gratifying, and utterly, utterly huge; the closing moments of 13 Bastards likely to cause internal injury from the sheer ferocity of the headbanging it will likely induce.
The band's relentless energy is mesmerising, with the beefy production a key contributor to the wall of crunchy guitars and frontman Gollo's furious screams that dominate throughout. Savages has a shout-along chorus that is bound to go down a storm at the band's already infamously incendiary live shows, whilst Traitors and She Bites are particularly unrestrained, coming straight in with powerful grooves and huge, hulking rhythms.
Things are kept fairly simple, but simple is rarely as effective as this. The songs are solid enough to ensure there's never a dull moment, but even if there was, the constant aural battering provides no time to consider such trivialities. A shining example of modern metallic hardcore done right, and with one-word song titles and intros that last exactly zero seconds, Black Dogs are here to shout at you very loudly in the hope that some of you will shout back.
Grief isn't here to mess about with moods or atmospheres, unless you count being punched in the head as feng shui. There are no clean vocals, no pointless breakdowns, and no intermissions; in fact if it was any more in your face you'd have to get it surgically removed. Black Dogs are going to enjoy hurting you; the least you can do is embrace the pain.