As long as we're all living, we're all dying Reviews

Hanging like a Hex Zine: AS LONG AS WE’RE ALL LIVING, WE’RE ALL DYING 7"- This may be one of the worst names for a band ever simply because of it’s ridiculous length, but it’s a pretty awesome release. I don’t quite know how only two guys (a drummer and guitarist) can produce such a full sound that has all the markings of a good crusty thrash-hardcore conglomeration going for it. The first side of this record is more fast, His Hero Is Gone type stuff with some massive breakdowns. The B-side is more straight-up metallic in nature. Lyrically they are right on the money, at least for me and what I like to hear- fuck work ("Slitting Your Wrists On the Company Copy Machine"), fuck fashionable hipster assholes ("Burn Allston To the Fucking Ground"), and other notable subjects that make this a worthwhile listen. I’ve heard some new material as well and it definitely takes a faster, more thrashy approach overall, and that’s damn good. I bet these kids are a hoot live. (Teenage Disco Bloodbath,

http://www.hanginghex.com/pages/zine.html

Aversion Online.com
7/10 - [Teenage Disco Bloodbath]
This band is a duo (one dude on guitar/vocals and another on drums/vocals) but you'd never know it from the brand of crusty, metallic hardcore/punk they're unloading on this EP. Part of that's due to the fact that they've layered two tracks of guitar throughout, but regardless, the playing is tight, the writing is strong, and the recording is incredibly efficient considering. I don't miss the presence of bass guitar at all thanks to the thick and crunchy guitar tone, and the mix is balanced so that the gruff shouting vocals rest in against the music and the drums play an equal role with the guitars. The drums also sound pretty crisp and natural, so even though there are definitely rugged areas it all makes sense and works together in the end. The songs are pretty damn diverse as well. "Premonitions" opens with eerie clean guitars before plowing into a set of faster chord progressions that have some dissonance going on to keep things from being too straightforward, and the moshy breaks are pretty damn creative too, using atypical chord phrasings rather than basic chugga chugga stuff. "Burn Allston to the Fucking Ground" is shorter, faster, and has a similar thread of traditional hardcore with a beefier texture to it, and then "Amends" goes from thrash to ripping grindcore to modern sounding metalcore riffing that's ever so faintly Swedish. Closer "Slitting Your Wrists on the Company Copy Machine" is somewhat chunkier and more rhythmic in nature, tossing in a lot of caustic playing that's noisier than any of the other material, but never lacks control. The record is pressed on transparent red vinyl and comes in a black, white, and red sleeve with a xeroxed booklet that contains some live photos, lyrics, song explanations, etc. The content is pretty standard and deals with social ills, the unfortunately common problem of fashion over substance in hardcore, etc. But I have no quarrels with the pointed lyrics: "Our homes are filled with empty picture frames, Vacant stares and the shades of our dreams, I can remember caring about something, but I've been gutted and cleaned…" As a bonus the 7" includes a CD-R that has the four songs from the record on it followed by five newer tracks recorded live on the radio in New Jersey (alongside a xeroxed insert with lyrics and liner notes about the new songs). Among the newer material, "Compromised" tosses in some Gorilla Biscuits sounding melody with the heavier hardcore exhibited on the 7" tracks, and "Air Israel" is a cool instrumental with lots of the same creative picking patterns and note choices that caught my ear on the 7". But the most promising moment comes with "So Much Smoke", which starts with an excellent clean passage that's got more of an emotional bent to it - which continues once the distortion kicks in. I'd love to hear this track re-recorded with a more powerful sound, because this is great stuff. The recording on the live tracks is a little thin compared to the EP itself, but not because they're a duo, simply because the mix is sort of quiet and favors drums to guitars and vocals, so a lot of the density and detail is lost. Fuck it, though. It's great that they tossed the CD-R in for free, you know? I'll be looking forward to hearing more from these two. For a young band they're quite talented, and I have to confess that they're one of the stronger sounding duos I've encountered in recent times. Good work.
Running time - 9:00 (approximately), Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: Premonitions, Slitting Your Wrists on the Company Copy Machine, So Much Smoke, Air Israel]
Teenage Disco Bloodbath Records - http://www.tdbrecords.com

http://www.aversionline.com/reviews/2459/

Metal Review.com: Veterans of the hardcore scene, I can empathize with you. Like your precious, sacrosanct scene, the impassioned metal I grew up with now appears tepid, sterile, decrepit. Bizarrely, we both suffer from the very same cancer- I guess you guys took that trip to Gothenburg too, huh? We should've quarantined global exposure to Slaughter of the Soul, The Somberlain and The Jester Race, seeing as how that unholy triumvirate has nurtured a putrid tumor that threatens to plague aggressive music for all eternity, swallowing it into a bottomless black pit of tremolo picking and twin leads. They seemed so benign at the time, so harmless. Just as my Blood Feasts and Onslaughts have been replaced with bland substitutes, Carnal Forge's and Dimension Zero's, your hallowed halls, once graced by such names as Integrity, Disembodied, Unbroken and Bloodlet is now infested with well-coiffed, metrosexual she-males, each possessing a bonafide degree in Whoracle mimicry and dressed in pants so tight you'd swear they induced impotency. Where are your cargo shorts and crew cuts? The sweat, tears and camaraderie that served as the nexus for your exclusive scene have been overwhelmed by Hot Topic, black nail polish and piercings. If it weren't so metalcore, I'd weep for you.

Yet, you labor on, wading through the seas of desensitized, blithering zombies, intent on proliferating a spirit and ethos that embodies hardcore as a lifestyle and philosophy. For every Usurper and Desaster that we can be proud of, you have your own Verse, Have Heart and With Honor, bands that refuse to succumb to popular conceptions, hellbent on preserving increasingly unfashionable ethics that stand on the precipice of extinction. Be glad that you can add As Long As We're All Living, We're All Dying to that hardy list of scar-ridden legionaries. Don't be dissuaded by the obnoxious moniker. I know they're even more outrageously titled than Between The Buried & Me, who stink. Fear Before The March Of Flames, Where Fear & Weapons Meet, they're not exceptional either, I'll give you that, but listen, these guys are good, and honest! What more could you want, really?

Yeah, sure, the 7"starts off in a trite fashion, a gently strummed, serene guitar passage that paves the way for a string of pummeling, deliberate chords. Hang in there...do you hear that? The thrashy crossover drum pattern, the Shai Hulud-y melodic echoes in the riffing, the straight-ahead, bludgeoning, take-no-prisoners approach. Brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it? How about the snot-nosed, bratty Charles Bronson gutter punk of track 2, complete with gang vocals and fleshed out beatdown section? Yeah, sure, THAT swedemetal influence surfaces on track 3, these young'n's invariably caught the bug with the rest of them, but it's just interpreted in such an energetic and cutthroat fashion that you HAVE to love it. Track 4-If that Overcome meets Disembodied chugathon doesn't enkindle the red-eyed pit beast in you, I don't know what will.

If you've caught your breath, there's a fiercely underproduced nugget of Sick Of It All adulation on Track 5, presumably culled from a separate session, a filthy blast of Skitsystem/Nausea/Gism flavored crusty ferocity on Track 6, a super-dense Track 7 that starts off sounding kinda like Breach, then swells into a sweltering mass of cathartic, explosive and sloppy punk rock. Holy shit, these guys never let up! Sometimes dark and brooding like His Hero Is Gone, sometimes contemplative like Shai Hulud, always ruthless, tortured and maniacal with just a tiny smidgen of Eucharist/ At The Gates for good measure. Yeah, they're still really underdeveloped, but with more development of these dynamic passages I'm sure they'll be something special.

I know half of these songs have no real enduring value, that two or three sound like they were recorded in a bedroom with a single Talk Boy. Who cares, though? If I can dig Hellhammer, Sodom's demo recordings and Mutiilation, I have no qualms awarding this record top marks. The passion of this young troupe brims to the very top, and even in their most underdeveloped moments conjure up images of smouldering, stuffy basements packed with kids who live solely for music. At their best, ALAWAL display an intriguing capacity for dark, sometimes Cursed-esque hardcore, infused with hues of melody and just enough metallic tendencies to add some heft to the unabashed punk RAWK. This, like the Tides record on the same label, kicks a lot of ass, and while I have close to no interest in hardcore whatsoever, I am really quite drawn by the sounds on this slab of wax. Enough of me rambling though, you agree, don't you? Here, let me get that tear for you.

http://www.metalreview.com/viewreview.aspx?ID=1583