Damn, this is intense. Embrace Today's "Soldiers" is a study in aggression. There's really not a lot to say about this album aside from the fact that it's fast, pissed off hardcore. I could go on and on with all kinds of florid metaphors or write some kind of concept review in which I pretend to be writing from the standpoint of a dyslexic clown, but would that really be necessary?

Embrace Today waste no time getting things off the ground, the CD starts with a short answering machine message inquiring about the progress of the album, ending with "I know you'll do us proud." They were right. With the screaming of "destroy" the band flies into the albums first track, "Hope". There are no frills here, none, every little pretty nuance that some bands have come to rely on has been stripped away, leaving only the bare bones. There's no time for those things anyway. With all the excess gone, Embrace Today is free to rampage through 15 tracks with a kind of genuine anger that isn't seen nearly as much as it should be.

In the lyrical department ET won't ever be mistaken for poets, but they do make their point. In the song "Prove Me Wrong" vocalist Scott Peacock screams "Your time will come, burnt out, washed up, nothing more than a name to hang your fucking hat on." The driving force behind such tirades is the straight edge lifestyle, that's not my thing by any stretch of the truth but the songs on here aren't to be argued with.

I'm not usually one to care about these things, but the cover art for this album is amazing. Jake Bannon has outdone himself again, and the fiery, war-torn landscape depicted on the cover fits perfectly with the sound of this band. You'll probably either love this or hate it, but I find myself enjoying every bit of this release.

The War Goes On MP3