Blood for Blood - Serenity

Band/artist - Blood for Blood
Genre(s) - Hardcore
Origin - Charlestown/Boston, USA
Album - Serenity
Year of release - 2004

Serenity is quite something, and hard to describe too, for someone who isn't used to this kind of music. I have solid aesthetic reasons to dislike most "-core" music, but with this album, Blood for Blood really made my jaw drop. Yes, it's jagged, curb-stomping violence, full of palm-muted madness and breakdowns. Nothing for me at all. So why do I like this album so much? A lot has to do with Erick Medina's vocals. They are overwhelmingly brutal but there's more to them than just that. It gives the really quite socially engaged (in the more abstract sense) and hopeful lyrics something very imperative. There are also more melodic choruses to alleviate the aggression here and there, and even the roughest passages have some sort of hidden grace to them. Despite the devotional, prayerlike interludes, this is not an actively religious band as far as I know. This incredibly short and volatile album is as much an ode to the squalorous, grey-concrete inner-city jungle as a call for attention to the everyday misery experienced there. "We care!"

1. A prayer to the night sky
2. Serenity
3. Hanging on the corner
4. Live the lie
5. A rock 'n' roll song
6. My Jesus mercy
7. Runaway
8. City boy
9. Serenity (reprise)
   

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