This band would've easily scored another .5 across the board if they had named their band Grimlock instead of Hemlock. Naming your band after the king of the Dinobots is a ticket to immediate coolness. And if the singer had spit all his lyrics with the Grim One's Robo-Cretaceous vocabulary?
"Me Grimlock no nice dino, me MASH BRAINS!!" *cue double-bass attack*
Goddamn, that'd be cool. It would also, in terms of intellect, be head-and-shoulders above the insipid bullshit found on No Time For Sorrow. What type of lyrics do you think you'll find on "Backstabber", "And The Friendship Corrodes", and--no bullshit, this is an actual title--"Beautality"? If you guessed 'angsty tales of scorn and the life-lessons that have supposedly been learned', you win...this album! Seriously. I'll mail it to you. Lash your address. Be warned, however, because this album smells like a rabid goat and has back hair. You have to shave it before you listen to it. And the Transformers gimmick would've totally gone to waste. The Grimlock impersonation wouldn't have been appropriate at all.
"Me Grimlock used to be friend, but you turned your back on me! Me Grimlock yell into microphone all-angry-like to make up for the fact that I'm a whiny bitch! Bandmates make noise! Grimlock BREAK HEADS!! Get in mosh pit, motherfuckers, Grimlock want to see movement out there!!"
Yeah, that doesn't sound right. Do you know what else wouldn't sound right? If someone had told me, six months ago, that there would be a veritable stream of mallcore raw sewage polluting my desk (Ashes of Your Enemy, Engel, this Excedrin-depleting piece of shit). Apparently, there's a market for barrel-scraping poserism, but it certainly resides outside the educated circle of Metal Review readers.
Hemlock's brand of musical retardation isn't as blatant as that of their shithop forefathers from nearly a decade ago; the band disguise their schlock with a heavier metal coating, similar to the way Sworn Enemy dressed up their tough-dude hardcore on their last album. The difference is that Hemlock don't have the chops that Sworn Enemy now possess, and the metallic makeup is a lot more transparent here. No Time For Sorrow is only going to find an audience among those that worship at the altar of Seputura's Roots, American Head Charge's collection of hypodermic needles, and "getting down with the sickness". It may be heavier this time around, but it's still the same old song.
"Me Grimlock no like shitty music! GRIMLOCK SMASH!!"
Next.