All Out War

Within one second (literally) of the first cut, it's obvious All Out War are on a very determined mission to deliver pure, undiluted metallic hardcore on Condemned to Suffer. And holy hell, do they ever do a good job at it. It's inherent in the genre that it's going to be predictable, but this thing has survived repeated listens at loud volumes here and I'm still reaching for it when I need a fix of aggression. The Slayer influence is fairly obvious in the go-go-guitar solo-go song structures and Hatebreed also keeps elbowing into my psyche as this one is playing, what with that enormously heavy production, great simplistic riffs and excess stores of energy. Punishing stuff in every sense of the word, held back only by the knowledge that you've kind of heard it before, but maybe never quite as perfect as this.