Artist: With Daggers
Album: Widower
Genre: Hardcore
Label: We Are Triumphant

I’m awful when it comes to staying up to date on generally anything, I mean I follow Breaking News on Twitter, but that’s pretty much where it ends. But I do tend to be decently up to date on what matters most to me; the current happenings in the music industry, especially when it comes to metal and hardcore bands from the northeast, oddly specific as that may be. So when I first heard With Dagger’s debut EP, Widower, I thought I had been getting a bit lazy, how could I have missed such a thing? The name sounded familiar, and the music was way too well done for these guys to be a new band, this couldn’t have been their first album, what happened? Well as it turns out I hadn’t been asleep at the job as much as I had thought, astonishingly Widower is the debut effort from these guys. But of course, now I was more blown away with the top-notch professionalism inherent in With Dagger’s sound, and less with how oblivious I thought I was for a moment there. Of course, the name With Daggers does sound like pretty standard fare for the hardcore scene, but after a bit more research I found out they are working with the guys at We Are Triumphant who seem to have quite the keen ear for high caliber mostly-unknown metal and hardcore bands, and their good taste has proved itself once more with these guys.

As far as I’m concerned, hardcore has very little to do with technicality and musicianship, I don’t need to hear how good these guys are at guitar, or how developed and technically correct the vocalist’s screams are. I want to feel this music just as much as I’m hearing it. And that’s exactly the feeling I get when I listen to Widower, I can feel power and aggression not only from the strained vocals, but through each screech of feedback from the guitars, or the dissonance created by the silence of the drums during the breakdowns, its just the way it should be, the perfect combination of listenability and aggression. And that is precisely what so many hardcore bands can’t accomplish, they tend to veer too far in either direction, they’re usually either way too angry to actually write a song, or not angry enough to write a proper hardcore song; that mix is usually hard to accomplish. But by the first breakdown in “Monologue” its very clear that With Daggers have that formula down pretty well. And the fact that they deciphered a balance that most bands spend their entire careers with just their first EP is seriously impressive. Maybe it was just coincidence that I reviewed two albums from up and coming bands that show a unique amount of natural talent and expertise, or maybe these younger bands deserve more credit than I thought, but whatever the reason, I think its safe to say that With Daggers aren’t rookies on the scene, perhaps they are by the numbers, but they have proved that they aren’t just another hardcore band destined to never play more than local house shows for townies that are way too drunk to remember who they are. This sort of talent doesn’t come without hard work, and With Daggers certainly appears to be going places, and with a debut release like Widower, its really no wonder.

As far as I’m concerned, while Widower is a good album, and stands just fine on its own, I take it as something more. I wouldn’t be crazy enough to say this album is perfect, or that With Daggers is my new favorite hardcore band of all time, but this album feels much more seasoned than a standard first effort, and I think that can say a lot about the potential future for this band. As With Daggers supports this album, and eventually moves on to create something new, they will only gain more experience, and will only get better, and that spells exciting things for the future of hardcore; the genre could use a few more bands like this. But this album is what we have now, no sense in pushing this aside because its so good, in hopes of something better on the horizon, this is a truly remarkable album, regardless of the circumstances, and is most certainly worth a listen.

SCORE: 8/10
Reviewed by: Mike Hogan

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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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