Do the words “Instant classics” mean anything to you?
If not, do yourself a favor, get the “new” (2013) album from the Portuguese crew. It’s worth thousands explanations and examples (including mine).
“Instant”, because it’s direct. No experimentation, no post nor proto-anything. Just pure energy from the speakers to your ears, and body. First, the nodding, the shaking, the moshing, unstoppable for 26 minutes, as if you were discovering Rage Against the Machine or Terror again.
Then, while you are trying to get back your breath, the thinking: what happened?
The same as usual with For The Glory. That’s the “classical” part. Efficiency, fueled by nervous bursts of power, channeled through a well managed groove. Or the perfect balance between punk and bouncing NY style hardcore. Like thousands of other bands? Be honest, when was the last time you heard good ol’hardcore rocking this way? Knowing the recipe doesn’t make you a good cook. You need experience (and these guys have it for sure, cf the 110 song : “after a decade [they] still do it [their] way”) and to put all your heart in the process (same song: “give it all, be sincere, do it [your] own way”).
For what result?
Powerfully played and produced, the album is as heavy as the Portuguese external debt and it hits you as strong as the IMF do on public services in a “supposedly-in-crisis” country.
Those shitty metaphors were not chosen by coincidence. It’s my modest attempt to highlight one more quality (if not the main one) of this album: the way it is linked to a particular reality (in this case the European/Portuguese one).
As a globalized phenomenon, hardcore sometimes loses sight of its local reality. Bands, lyrics and sounds are often focused on emulating the American model and trends. Which is quite contradictory with the nature of hardcore in itself, as a way to claim that you are distinct from the masses.
In this case, the music won’t help you to geographically specify/identify the band. But the lyrics point at very specific situations, like the unfair mantra the IMF/Government/Press try to impose on the portuguese national subconscient (“You say we’re living beyond our means”, in Darktimes). Or the real cancer eating the portuguese society right now (“Lies and corruption like never before”, same song). Or the entire “Lisbon blues” explicitly citing the place and the facts.
I think Portugal deserves attention, in general, but especially now, and I was pleased to see a band like For The Glory (playing groovy hardcore, and representing the portuguese scene since a long time) giving up abstract angers and focus their agressivity on specific things.
the bandcamp
the facebook
the merch
the objectivity:
Daily Rock France (FR)
Echoes and dust (EN)
Metal France (FR)
Soundscape (EN)
Bring me the sound (FR)
Bandcom (PT)
Salad.days (IT)
