Check out this awesome review of the killer new Hatebreed album… UK version out on CD this week for only 퉌£9.99 (and includes a bonus track). This just so happens to be the Lead Album Review in the latest issue of Metal Hammer’s Subterrania. HATEBREED THE RISE OF BRUTALITY [ROADRUNNER] HAS it really been 18 months since our last dose of Hatebreed? Frontman Jamey Jasta and company made great inroads with their well-named second album, ‘Perseverance’, and there can be little doubt that the metal-injected hardcore of ‘The Rise Of Brutality’ will boost the Connecticut five-piece a few further rungs up the ladder. For a band of humble independent origins the question, of course, is at what cost? Perhaps still mindful of sell-out accusations, Hatebreed allowed Roadrunner to license the album from Universal just as this issue was going to press. I guess we’ll find out their reasons at a later date. Aside from the departure of guitarist Lou Richards, those who pay attention to such trivia will also note the removal of Matt Hyde from the producer’s desk, replaced by Zeuss of Shadows Fall fame, and with none other than Mike Fraser (Metallica, AC/DC, Aerosmith and – ulp! – Bryan Adams) being brought in to handle the project’s mix. But you relax, Hatebreed haven’t sold out. These songs are still crunchy as a raw lobster sandwich, Jasta’s anguished bellows as punchy and ferocious as before, yet once again his streetwise sentiments are strangely decipherable. ‘Perseverance’ was a lean, energetic and supple (but certainly not subtle) slice of escapist hardcore energy, with just two of its 17 songs creeping past the three-minute mark. This time, ‘Facing What Consumes You’, ‘Doomsayer’ and ‘Another Day, Another Vendetta’ and the album’s first single ‘This Is Now’ all encroach into what’s generally regarded as dangerously ‘epic’ territory. Fortunately, the record’s 35 minutes of music are as mosh-friendly as you’d hope guitarist Sean Martin will literally pin you to the wall with his stun-gun riffery on ‘Live For This’, ‘A Lesson Lived Is A Lesson Learned’ and the bruisingly Biohazard-Like ‘Straight To Your Face’. DAVE LING [8]