Ahhh, the 90′s. As Hannover, Germany’s finest, Hate Squad would put it, “Old Times, Good Times”. It’s strange to think that an era of culture I’m familiar with is now in the archives of history, so to speak. There’s 90′s stuff, and then there’s the stuff of today. I can’t catch Rocko’s Modern Life on TV anymore, my Pog collections are gone, and Joey Fat-One is on Guy vs. Rachel Celebrity Cook-off, not on stages across the country with NSYNC. On second thought, maybe it’s better that way,

Most pertinent to this review, there is a certain 90′s character to music and the first incarnations of what would be called metalcore. Hate Squad was among them, though probably flying under the radar for most of our readers here at The NewReview. I hadn’t heard of them until their most recent album, Katharsis, and I’ve got to say, this record bleeds 90′s metal and hardcore. If you like bands like Overcast, Earth Crisis, Integrity, and even metal legends like Metallica and Pantera, you’ll love the unbridled energy of Hate Squad.

Starting in 1993, Hate Squad has been staying true to the sound they love, and Katharsis will tell you so from just one listen. The buzz-saw guitar of 90′s metal rips through every song, and even the drum tone seems to be stolen from a time capsule. As the title track opens following an acoustic intro, the recording of a shotgun being cocked forces a smile. Good old-fashioned ass-kicking hardcore. “Hatebomb” and “Vicious Assault” are among the more straight-forward tracks on the album, with all of the d-beat thrashing you can handle. Vocalist Burkhard Schmitt, though largely unvaried in his vocal delivery, keeps the blood flowing with his hybrid death growl / yell. I was reminded most of Dying Fetus’s Sean Beasley and Vince Matthews. When he snarls “I WANT TO KILL”, I’m convinced.

Sadly, the minute-long interludes “Misanthropic Soul” and “Face Your Demon” don’t do much for the album, really, and function only as quick breathers before the next pit massacre to be induced in the song to come. However, some other elements foreign to basic hardcore did bring the album together as a whole. I was pleased at the atmosphere created on songs like “Your Rotten Life” and “Kill”, balancing Metallica-style thrash riffs with tom-tom bounces and eerie leads. “The One” contains most of the musical tools on Hate Squad’s proverbial tool-belt and was my favorite from Katharsis. Truly, elements of metal and hardcore are found in abundance in this metalcore. No frills, no progressive audio-sampling and editing, no durn saxophones or durn rapping, ya durn kids. Just the heaviest hardcore metal possible. Nothing unpredictable, but a lot of things I like in my heavy music.

The album, as a whole, feels just a bit too long. Clocking in at 49 minutes (56 with bonus tracks), Katharsis might wear a listener out in one sitting. Most of the songs are 4 minutes or longer, with many approaching five minutes, and this is a way in which Hate Squad dance the line between hardcore and metal. Were they a hardcore band, each song would be cut in half, and so would the album. But the way it feels to me, Katharsis is still, nearly 20 years later, a metal band with hardcore energy, and Katharsis is a metal album with hardcore intensity; a basic, yet “Vicious Assault” with no mercy to the ears.

3.5/5