Evergreen Terrace - Almost Home

Evergreen Terrace come pummeling through on their fifth studio album with distinction.

Holy fuck. On the rare occasion an album justifies such colorful adjective, it is fitting that the miscreants involved are the best tongue-in-cheek hardcore outfit around today. Never one to take themselves overly serious, Evergreen Terrace come pummeling through on their fifth studio album with distinction. You see, hardcore faces a lot of critical introspection, with it being such an urgent subgenre, people tend to get angry when you don't sing about something "important." So goes Evergreen Terrace, with all their Big Lebowski, Simpsons, Fight Club, and Family Guy references, giving hardcore a less than subtle middle finger without sacrificing the genre's necessary urgency. A Day To Remember try to do this but sound far too saccharine, and bands like Four Year Strong and Set Your Goals forgo it all completely. So it leaves Evergreen Terrace, who at this point come across like Strung Out on speed. "Almost Home (III)" and "Enemy Sex" is razor sharp; melodic hardcore's picture perfect amalgam while "Mario Speedwagon" breathes a stellar uniformity between having to be brutal and accessible at the same time (killer ax solo bro).

God forbid a melodic hardcore band write an album with actual melodies. Missteps aside ("We're Always Losing Blood"), Almost Home is a galvanizing album. And if you spend all your time watching talking cartoon dogs and flamboyant megalomaniacs hellbent on killing their mother, here it is in layman's terms; this album absolutely smokes, a contender for the genre's album of the year. "Holy fuck" indeed.

(Metal Blade Records)