About a year ago, a friend of mine asked me out of the blue if I wanted to go on a roadtrip to Germany with his new band. The plan was to drive for 12 hours, play one 30-minute show in an obscure punk club downtown and return early next morning, another 12 hours back.I have to admit that I didn’t really care that much about the band, that was then called No Recess, since I wasn’t at all in a hardcore ‘mood’ at the time. Also, these kids seemed to be the very epicentre of the local hardcorescene then, and when confronted with such vast amounts of ‘coolness’ I almost automatically cringe. Throw in the fact that their frontman was in fact a girl – not a dirty and smelly crust-girl, but a ‘real’ girly-girl – and maybe you could understand why my point about this band was already made before I heard a single note. Yes, I can be that narrow minded at times.
But in the end, I did end up in their van, because sometimes I can see past the horizon of my own little world and understand that my prejudgements are not necessarily true ALL the time. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have started this review with this stupid little story if they were, because it just wouldn’t have been worth the effort. Fact is that from the moment our absurd little trip started, I had to adjust my view radically. In short, these kids were living the hardcore dream all other 17 year olds vicariously lived through worshipping bad local metalcore bands. And it wasn’t as if they had to force it or something, it just came naturally. Also, their singer wasn’t at all the arrogant little ‘look-at-me-i-sing-in-a-hardcore-band’-scenegirl I took her for, but really nice, and kind of putting my own inner arrogance to shame. Plus, she baked ridiculously delicious vegan cookies for the trip.
Not too long after that, No Recess ‘disbanded’, throwing a memorable last show in the smallest venue in Flanders, on the beach, in front of a sweaty and crazy crowd, only to rise from its ruins a couple of months later as Oathbreaker, sporting a new drummer and a seemingly more ‘professional’ approach. Another couple of months later, their first self-titled 7” and MCD is a fact.
I’m pretty sure they won’t like to be compared to No Recess, but really, it’s kind of inevitable. Although better on all fronts, there’s little denying that Oathbreaker has No Recess at its very core. I don’t see why that should necessarily be a bad thing. It only means the youthfulness and recklessness hasn’t yet gone to waste while upgrading to ‘smarter’ riffs and overall better songwriting.
The album starts of with long layers of feedback that recall euhm, almost every hardcore record that came out in Belgium for the last two years. Soon though, the guitar starts doing this cool tapping, building up tension towards a nice mid-tempo riff. The lead on top of it is nice and well executed, but I would have loved to see how it could have developed into a full song, instead of a short intro.Next song is ‘Shelter’, which can also be heard on their myspace. No doubt the best song on the record, musicwise and lyricwise. The intensity and anger is all over the place, finding anything but consolation in the cathartic breakdown at the end.
‘Ashes’ is an interlude that starts of with some clean picking. Something strange happens here though. All of a sudden there are 50 seconds of silence before the next song. I don’t really see the point there.
‘Downfall’ and ‘Mirror’ are two very good and enjoyable tracks, with some standout guitarwork, though they never reach the same level as 'Shelter'.
Overall, Oathbreaker doesn’t seem to hold any pretension of breaking new ground here, just delivering 3 pieces of above par quality hardcore in the vein of Rise And Fall and Disfear, but delivering it with a conviction that makes them stand out of the heaps of similar sounding bands coming out nowadays. I’m really stoked to see what the future will bring for them.
Oathbreaker Myspace
Holy Shit Records
