As the regular visitors to the site might have already realized, I’m not the biggest fan of the current hard/metalcore wave. Too many bands, inflation, no one’s happy, yadda yadda – you get the idea. Far from being original, Canadian Hollow Ground do at least something right to these ears.

6 songs, 12 minutes of straight to the point tough guy riffing and breakdowns, similar to bands like Cataract and to some extend, Hatebreed. No At the Gates aesthetics to be heard anywhere and quite frankly, I’m extremely pleased by that fact. No clean vocals or “catchy emo choruses” either which brings even more points to the band.

Perhaps it’s the compact length of the package, but I really didn’t feel any irritation any time I spun the album in the player. Heck, I even found myself nodding my head in the vein of A Night at the Roxbury. And that’s a big compliment.

If your morning cereals consists of crunchy guitar work and romping around, I don’t see why Hollow Ground’s effort should go unnoticed. If they can keep up the consistency, I’d be willing to listen to this sort of stuff for 20 minutes more. Thanks for not sucking.

[Visit the band's website]

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