Artist: Earth Crisis
Album: Neutralize The Threat
Genre: Hardcore

What happens when you have a bunch of angry, straightedge, vegan, etc. dudes in a band together? Well, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll be a hardcore band. There’s also a pretty solid chance they’ll sound a heck of a lot like Earth Crisis does on their latest album, Neutralize The Threat. For those that don’t know Earth Crisis, they’ve been around the block a couple times, with this new album being their seventh release and the first being in 1994.

At a grand total running time of just over thirty minutes, there’s no mistaking what this album offers or how it’s going to deliver it. Every single idea on this album is delivered quickly and in the most blunt manner possible, and moved on from almost immediately, chugging along to the next beefy riff. As riff after riff comes and goes, Karl Beuchner continues to scream various rants about politics, animal cruelty, how shitty the population of the world is, how he’s just generally angry at everything, war, and various other topics. You know, hardcore 101 type stuff, including song titles such as “The Eradicators” and “Total War” that you might expect to find on an album of this nature.

Earth Crisis are floating along a very thin line between familiar and unoriginal for pretty much the entire duration of Neutralize The Threat, and it really doesn’t serve them well. The most interesting parts of the album come in the first five or so minutes, and from there on out it’s pretty straightforward mosh music. Perhaps great for the live setting, it doesn’t really hold interest that well if you’re not smashing some heads in.

Undeniably the biggest gripe about this album is that it’s so remarkably inoffensive to someone who listens to any metalcore or hardcore. There isn’t a single thing on this album that challenges the listener in any way. No complex rhythms or unorthodox guitar work, nothing that ends up being truly extreme in any way. Partially due to the nature of the genre (and considering it’s remained pretty much unchanged in two decades), and partially due to what appears to be Earth Crisis just settling for what it is they know, just a bit heavier this time around–but still not as heavy as some of their colleagues.

Neutralize The Threat is not an album I’d recommend to someone looking for something surprising, but would certainly recommend to someone who likes pretty much any hardcore/metalcore records. Even though it’s not really all that groundbreaking or special, Neutralize The Threat is pretty well executed, and certainly hits hard from start to finish. I guess sometimes you just need music to mosh to.

Score: 6/10
Review written by: Jordan Munson

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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