Integrity – Suicide Black Snake

Stream: Integrity – Suicide Black Snake

If you’re an avid follower of this blog, you know I pump out a lot of reviews. I’m dealing with different genres every day, and it’s pretty interesting to see what fans are and aren’t generally in touch with the forefathers of whatever musical style they follow most passionately.

Example: my recent Bring Me The Horizon review. It’s an album I didn’t really care for, but I got a lot of questions asked of me when I made mention of liking other–and, I think, older–bands in the genre of metalcore. When I brought up names like the Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge or even Integrity on Twitter or YouTube, I wasn’t met with much in the way of agreement or disagreement. I’m just gonna go out on a limb and assume there’s not a lot of crossover appeal between metalcore of the 90s and the genre’s more melodic counterparts that have been releasing albums since the 2000s.

Now, do I think Bring Me The Horizon fans should be diehard Integrity fans as well? No, but that’s what’s interesting here. Changes, changes, changes! Personally, I feel metalcore has evolved so much since it’s rough beginnings, I don’t see what a band like Integrity would really bring to the table for someone who wholeheartedly enjoys Sempiternal. There’s nothing smooth about the band’s delivery, and the vocals are incredibly gruff–which I think most extreme music fans will find to be the case.

Integrity’s Suicide Black Snake may be a brand new release, but the album’s music is still an archaic display of metalcore’s roots. Hardcore punk and heavy metal influences are loosely stitched together into a pretty rough recording, which is executed with some rough, wild playing.

It’s an intensely freewheeling collection of tracks that you can stream via the link above. Suicide Black Snake is looking at a June 11th release via A389 and Magic Bullet. Enjoy!

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