Final Prayer's full length 'Right Here, Right Now.'
Genre lives and dies. And the genre of choice for 'the kids' at the moment is tuff-man hardcore. Once upon-a-time (about ten years ago) kids would have been running up walls to be the next Liam Gallagher or Jarvis Cocker, but nowadays it's 'I wish I could scream like that' and every bandana-wearing girl wants to be Candace from Walls Of Jericho. Sometimes I think we're going to look back at today's (xxxNYxHCxxx) hardcore scene similar to how we look at the 80's now and think 'My oh my, where did it all go wrong?'
Now Final Prayer is a quintet from Berlin, a place renowned for street violence and the usual ghetto activities found in any other city. Their aim is to bring violence off the streets and onto the dance floor (nice one guys!) with the usual formula of straight up hardcore with some dirty truck driver-esque vocals. To be frank, it's the kind of band who would sit comfortably on the Trustkill roster with bands such as Throwdown and the older Terror. All the traditional hardcore trademarks are there with the signature breakdowns and d-beats. The only difference is this band aren't from America so I guess the German kids would appreciate having a band like Final Prayer to call their own.
Naming their 2nd album after Fat Boy Slim's number 2 hit in 1999 'Right Here, Right Now' (not really) the band claim to have better production and a refined sound of this album in contrast to 2004's '1st Round Knock-Out.' One particular song that tickles my fancy is 'Guilt Trip.' Halfway through the song, vocalist Stephan Pankratz leads the gang vocals in a rather impressive call and response chorus. Similar to Sick Of It All's album which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, this band aren't the fastest or most technical band you'll ever hear on disc but they bring an atmosphere that is hard to find in many hardcore bands today. It's just a shame that this record isn't anything groundbreaking or revolutionary.
So to be honest this band are no sunshine on a shitty day, there's nothing particularly spectacular in the record but if you are looking for a solid half hour of run of the mill hardcore than this is for you. I'm sure that there will be a lot of people who appreciate this record more than me but at this point in time, I've really had enough of this kind of stuff and need something refreshing to cure me of this musical boredom, and sadly this record isn't it.