Liberteer

Experimentation is the lifeblood of any genre. For any cultural production to evolve, take on new meaning and become relevant to the march of history at a given point there must be some degree of movement away from the status quo. Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees is Liberteer's debut album and it's riddled with some brilliant demonstrations of thrash at its best, while also tossing in a few baffling examples of experimentation gone awry. For the most part, Liberteer's debut is a decent entry into the world of thrashy grindcore: fast, angry, growling and thick. However, upon closer inspection, there are some unmistakably less common elements. The band have made the interesting, and not always wise, decision to insert odd brass sections and banjo licks into certain songs. The result is an odd mixture of grindcore, thrash and something that sounds like a Civil War battle cry, but the more relevant consequence is the total neutering of some otherwise kick-ass tracks. The band describe this experimentation as "a blasting war march that espouses nothing less than total anarchy." Rather than the kind of militant machismo one finds in Today is the Day, Liberteer have synthesized the wrong century for its formal experimentation and inspiration. Without a note of irony, I can sadly say that some tracks on this album sound like they're straight from the Trans Siberian Orchestra.