Good god. After five years since their last full-length, NY's All Out War are back with a bruiser (what else did you expect?). Condemned To Suffer, the band's third LP overall, is 12 tracks and almost 40 minutes worth of an incomparable metal/hardcore hybrid of colossal proportions that is utterly feral.

The first offering on the record, the manic "Straight Towards Extinction" exemplifies their sound perfectly, as it opens with noxious guitar riffs and sick metallic double bass drumming all at breakneck speed whilst barker Mike Score screams his apocalyptic lyrics. About one-minute in we get a little metal guitar solo, followed by a crushing hardcore breakdown which slows things up a bit, only to give way to another solo and a return to the previous frenetic tempo, just to lead into yet another breakdown that's simply brutal, folks. No way in hell anyone is getting out of the pit unscathed when this song is played live. You can really hear all the band's influences in their sound - Slayer, Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags…And, it's just more of the same after this gem. Just check out "Pray for Salvation", the relentless "Hypocrites of the Revolution", and for a nice flourish, the acoustic intro to the standout "Bleeding the Weak", which melds with bludgeoning guitars and drums that fuse into super-fast tempos.

As hinted at above, this record is full of foreboding, apocalyptic lyrics; the underlying themes of destruction and damnation of the human race brought on by, yes, the human race is even evident in many of the titles, from the aforementioned "Straight Towards Extinction", to "Heaven's Coming Down", "Destined to Burn", "Rise of the Anti-Christ", and the finale "Gone Forever". More specifically, "Extinction", as the title implies, relates all that's wrong in the world - or rather - what humans are doing wrong, which is quickly leading us to "doomsday." The following track, "Condemned to Suffer", is a continuation of this theme, calling our modern world a "living hell" comprised of "filth," "blood," "pain", and "tears." And with those incessant menacing screamed vocals, you believe this guy when he says we're all doomed and Armageddon is nigh.

Likewise, All Out War condemn greedy, power-hungry politicians often, as on "Gone Forever" and "Heaven's Coming Down", while they foresee these tyrants' downfall, on the rebellious "From the Bottom", as Score screams ominously, "Another empire's coming down." Similarly, the band often criticizes "false prophets" - corrupt religious leaders - who throughout the two millennia have fooled believers and have controlled them through fear on "Two Thousand Years". "Bleeding the Weak" deals with another gross injustice, genocide. The devastatingly heavy, dark music complements the negative, dire lyrics brilliantly. The one song that differs in subject matter is "Hypocrites of the Revolution", which rebukes poseurs in the scene. Still, this song is downright evil and worthy of mention.

http://www.victoryrecords.com/alloutwar.html