GENERATION KILL — Red, White and Blood (review)

GENERATION KILL — Red, White and Blood album cover Album · 2011 · Crossover Thrash Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Time Signature
Feast for the crossover-heads...

Genre: Crossover

Crossover is the unlikely, but unavoidable, bastard child of hardcore punk and thrash metal and, at its best it captures the sheer energy of hardcore punk and the aggression and focus on musicianship from thrash metal and balances them perfectly. And this is pretty much what Generation Kill do on their debut album.

After a slightly Middle-Eastern oriented acoustic guitar intro, 'Hate' kicks off with a straight in-yer-face hardcore riff and bombards you with raw energy. Soon thrash metal elements are infused into the track which also contains a heavy coda. This pretty much sets the tone of the entire album, some of the tracks, such as 'Hate', 'Red, White and Blood', and 'Depraved Indifference' being more oriented towards hardcore punk, while tracks like 'Feast for Wolves', 'Walking Dead' and 'Let Me Die' are more leaning towards thrash metal.

While the subject matter of the album appears to be a serious one (with plenty of references to killing and destruction), Generation Kill are not above injecting a dose of humor, which is reflected in, for instance, the title track, which appears to be a satirical critique of certain aspects of aggressive US foreign policy - complete with references to Inuit vaginas and a twisted guitar lead rendering of the American national anthem. This sort of humorous approach is not unusual to crossover metal and is inherited from both hardcore and thrash metal.

So "Red, White and Blue" is full of typical crossover elements, but Generation Kill also reach out beyond the boundaries of thrash metal and hardcore in the direction of alternative rock and sludge rock - as in the chorus of 'Feast for the Wolves', all of 'Self Medicating' and the groovy Southern metal inspired semi-doomy 'Slow Burn' (which has a nice surprise for you towards the end). 'Dark Ways' and 'Section 8' are quieter tunes, the latter even being a bit creepy, and NIN fans can look forward to a bonus track cover version of 'Wish'.

While more modern in sound and drawing on groovy metal, Generation Kill's debut album should appeal to fans of hardcore, thrash and crossover, and sludgeheads who like more uptempo music might find it appealing, too.
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