Dead Hearts - Bitter Verses
Dead Hearts are something of a local scene supergroup, gathering their members from various small-time punk and hardcore bands in Buffalo, NY. On "Bitter Verses", their debut full-length (if 33 minutes can be called full length), the group's approach is that of a modern hardcore band looking back to the roots of the genre. Songs are kept short and to the point and are less layered and produced than the output of a lot of modern hardcore bands, with a slightly more organic, garagey sound on offer. Dead Hearts seem happy to keep things to a mid-paced swagger for the most part, but they do sometimes break out into bouts of Slayer-speed thrashing (see 'Fail', for example). There are also some more contemplative and atmospheric sections, such as the melancholic guitar strumming of instrumental track 'Maeror'. Vocalist Derek Dole shouts his way through the CD's running time like he's just found out some bastard's smashed his Agnostic Front records, but remains fairly intelligible. There are no MTV-friendly clean vocals here, no keyboards; as the band themselves say in the press release, Dead Hearts is about living their 'high school hardcore fantasy'.
"Bitter Verses" is, believe it or not, a loose concept album based around the themes of insomnia and sleep deprivation. This works better than you might think, and the lyrics are suitably world-weary and bitter. Unfortunately, the band have a distressing tendency to simply repeat lines over and over again in lieu of a chorus - for example, the 'Sometimes we all fall down/Sometimes we fall/(We're falling down)' refrain in (what else?) 'Fall' goes on for what seems like years. Clearly, these are intended to be anthemic, chant-along audience participation moments (as emphasised by the heavy use of 'gang' vocals) but by Christ they're dull to listen to when you're dossing on the sofa with a nice cup of tea. The shame of it is, Dead Hearts are quite capable of writing a belting chorus when they want to, as evidenced on track 8, 'Cold'.
I also have to say that I love this album's packaging. The CD booklet/lyric sheet folds out into a cool poster by artist Jacob Bannon and Sons of Nero showing a tableau of skulls, hearts and dead birds. The paper even smells nice! But such visual and old factory delights are of course secondary to the music they adorn, and while "Bitter Verses" isn't going to set the world alight, it's certainly no cure for insomnia.