NY Hardcore Scenes Most Precious Blood prove top notch
Quite some attention has been drawn towards New York's Most Precious Blood in recent weeks, due to the controversy over their album artwork for their latest release 'Merciless' and its depiction of a realistic corpse, but the real question on my mind, and hopefully yours is, "Are they worth much beyond the press attention?" For Hardcore fans the answer is a solid and resounding yes!
Forgive me father, for I have sinned, I have a confession to make. I do not enjoy Hardcore, I personally find the music un-enjoyable on the whole and wholly not worth my time. Therefore it'll come as a surprise to both myself and the reader that I personally was impressed by 'Merciless', I still can't say I enjoyed every moment of this, but at all times there was a sense of purpose and quality song writing which I feel will go down a treat with anyone who considers themself a fan of Hardcore.
All of the typical shouty styles, loud distorted guitars and bashing rhythms are present in 'Merciless' which of course means it conforms to the Hardcore style and scene that Most Precious Blood feel so precious about. However there is also the addition of some programmed sections and string sections in some passages that help the albums music rise above the average.
One aspect I found personally off putting (although true appreciators of hardcore should feel free to disagree) was the "attitude" of Most Precious Blood, there is an attitude of superiority or "trueness" to the bands stylings, which I personally found disagreeable. This is particularly noticeable at the short monologue at the beginning of 'Aimed Carefully, Fired Relentless' in which they speak of how people are looking to them to bring "back the old hardcore style", as well as being slightly arrogant I simply got the impression of posturing. Its all very well to speak of how you want to do something but you really need the music to back it up, luckily the majority of this album does conform to what the band set out to do so some appreciation of this must be handed to them.
Overall then, whilst personally finding this album not to my tastes I can do nothing but recommend it to anyone who finds him or herself interested in the genre, as it is a fine example of a band pulling off a quality set of songs, performed with a passion for the style and the scene. I can only wish Most Precious Blood and their impassioned take on the style good thoughts for their future and you should do so too by picking up a copy of 'Merciless'.