Another Breath Not Now, Not Ever (2004) Rivalry

Oh yes... Hell yes! Another breath are the just the kick in the pants that hardcore kids everywhere crave in an endless manner. "Not Now, Not Ever," may only be eight songs deep, carrying exactly 15 minutes of music, but this band uses up every second of such to bring maximum intensity. Clocking in with a sound/mindset that's sort of like a very pissed off Strike Anywhere along with slight comparisons to Give Up The Ghost, these guys just ooze with musical ferocity and lyrical integrity.

A dual guitar attack helps propel the immediacy of the tunes on this release, as does the snappy sounding percussion. Although the band's sound is very much rooted in traditional hardcore, the top-notch modern production (courtesy of Kurt Ballou, at his God City studio) sounds wholesome while pounding your face in. Well executed gang vocals flourish as counterparts to vigorous lead vocals, and retain a smoldering effect rather than the fun, but cartoonish overbearing nature of certain bands working that sort of thing (e.g. With Honor, Comeback Kid). With a lyrical focus that bounces from deeply personal to socially relevant, Another Breath are a band that I can honestly identify with, as they are not cut from the same ilk that tend to pull hackneyed poetry out of their ass and claim it as some sort of 'deep' introspection. Each song in the booklet also has a paragraph explaining the meaning to the song, and again, the band seems so much alive for doing so.

I'm not sure how anyone who's a fan of hardcore could not go nuts over this.

(pastepunk)