Album Review: Pain of Truth by Pain of Truth
Album artwork for Pain of Truth by Pain of Truth
The Long Island band Pain of Truth has released their self-titled album and they’ve done it all here; huge guitar production, gang vocals, rhythms to stomp to, metallic riffs, and each breakdown surgically engineered to create a controlled demolition. With Will Putney on recording, mixing, and mastering their self-titled, Pain of Truth has been given a facelift that drastically changes their core sound, amplifying the band to sound like a pro-core wrecking ball in every song.
Pain of Truth have never been restrained by their roots. Their New York-style hardcore has been a great appeal since their arrival to the scene. Bands like Madball, Merauder, and Hatebreed: bluntness has always been swimming through the mix in their blunt-force, violent approach to what hardcore means to them. The difference between them and their blueprint bands of the past? Everything is off the scales, it's digitally engineered to be a rebar-reinforced sound. The vocals are direct in your face, the guitars have immense percussive weight to them, and drums are slapped hard enough to punch through almost anything. There is no confusion about how the band navigates its attention.
The album opens up by pulling out the big guns. Opening up with a track called Obliteration tells you all you need to know about the track, it's a nuke of a tune. A chuggathon starts and ends in just under three minutes, every attack by the guitars is incredibly controlled, and every drum hit is timed to perfection. Even when going into the ugliest rhythm sections, the mix sounds masterfully composed. It does sound phenomenal, but maybe too phenomenal. It's a weird thing to conclude this track is phenomenal in a bad light, compared to those classic NYHC-style records where the heaviness came from raw, bleeding-through instruments taking over the room, creating an amalgamation of sound to dance to. “Pain of Truth” is anything but this, everything is layered to perfection and has the synergy found in the big pro-core bands, making heavy breakdowns just for the heaviness. Pain of Truth are very much rooted in the hardcore scene, but from the production alone of this track, and found further through the self-titled album, its modern metal production cosplays as a genuinely dirty hardcore band. With this major issue aside, the arrangements of Obliteration wins it over, the tempos are smart, using slow drops when it's needed, cool riffs, and most importantly, cool dance parts.
The battering continues but gives space for the mix and a few dynamic adjustments to allow it to not feel pinned against the wall. The track broadens its lyricism further beyond the standard betrayal jargon, focusing on exploitation and people taking advantage of others below them for their own selfish desires. The quicker attacks throughout are desperately needed, as it allows the album to not become one giant halftime riff. There is some true energy that provides valuable counterweight to all the stomping around the album has.
Then we hit Chinatown, NY, it's probably the most interesting track found on the album. The groove here is more sustained and controls the rage more naturally rather than the push and pull tempo found earlier in the album on tracks such as Obliteration. The track spends more time developing its heaviness from repetition; it has a swagger about it. There are some cool blueprints to Chinatown, NY. You have brighter guitars flowing through the track, accompanied by slicing symbols cutting through the thick mix. This tune is a great highlight of the album, it shows the grittiness of the band, the weird feedback, texture, and the sound the band is known for. It's a shame so much sauce has been lost through the production throughout the album, but there are still remnants of that grittiness left behind, thankfully.
Pain of Truth didn't make anything ground-breaking here in the world of hardcore, but they’ve made music to kick your mates at shows and run someone through a merch table. What separates them from the endless pit of modern beatdown bands swarming venues around the world is that their rhythmic instincts are solid. They do love an over the top breakdown a lot, but they do it in an elegant way by having the knowledge of what makes a track heavy in the first place rather than tuning your guitar low and playing it stupidly slow. This song writing intelligence is a clear indication of their success as a band. The songs are written great, lyrics are more diverse than the usual “I'm the hardest person in the room.” type of band. Will Putney is where this album becomes questionable. His production style allows records to have absurd volume, clarity, and sheer force; it's hard to complain about this technical excellence, but technical excellence isn't what this record needs. The band doesn't need to get artificially any heavier, they complete that task themselves. They should strive for that dirtier, stranger, and unmistakable sound.
FFO: Judiciary, Sunami, Feel the Pain
SCORE: 5/10
Pain of Truth released on all streaming platforms on Friday 25th September, via DAZE.
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