I just can’t get behind Jamey Jasta & co. One could make the case that HATEBREED’s frontman/heart and soul of the band has done much for hardcore, as far as bringing it into the spotlight. Whoever said that’s where hardcore wanted to be is my thought. Anyway, the band’s never impressed me, but I can’t seem to help giving each new album a listen. Not sure exactly what I’m hoping for, but I know I haven’t found it yet.

And so it remains with Weight Of The False Self, HATEBREED’s eighth. I couldn’t help but wince at the rhyme of “animal” with “untamable” in opener ‘Instinctive (Slaughterlust)’, and the requisite breakdown at the song’s coda is as ho-hum as ever. ‘Let Them Rot’ thrives with all the skill and passion of a SFU deep cut, which is not at all, and ‘Set It Right (Start With Yourself)’ is elementary posi-core, coming across as low-brow sloganeering in a way that WARZONE and the Youth Crew founders never did. The title track and ‘Cling To Life’ flow past with less than a ripple, a surprisingly rawked-out guitar solo in the latter at least attempting to earn the price of admission.

‘Dig Your Way Out’ begins speedily enough, but the quintet seems to lose its way (or wander further into its already-meandering wilderness) for the final 1/3rd, to the point that I wasn’t even sure where they were heading. If there’s one thing hardcore should know, it’s what it’s about, and this song again confirms HATEBREED as one band that doesn’t. When ‘This I Earned’ does exactly the same thing at almost exactly the same time as its predecessor, it just hammers the nail home. A tolerable main riff holds aloft ‘Wings Of The Vulture’, and if more of Weight Of The False Self had ended up like this, we might have a markedly different review before our eyes.

But we don’t, and we never expected to. The album’s final three slugfests are more shrugfests, packing the punch of an egg roll in a wet gym sock, and consistently. So I suppose there is something to be said for consistency, for reliability. I just can’t help but smell the stink through the polished gold plating of this particular turd.
Review By: Lord Randall

HATEBREED
Weight Of The False Self
Nuclear Blast
0 / 6