The only thing I ever heard of Sworn Enemy was some typical hardcore material so I was very pleasantly surprised when I put ‘The Beginning of the End’ into the cd-player and the track ‘Forgotten’ kicked in:

 

“Hey, this a pretty damn cool riff”

“Check out those double-bass drums”

“Wow, these are basically thrashmetal vocals”

 

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a modern day thrash-metal record with some hardcore influences. Sworn Enemy puts the “metal” back in the metalcore with this record. The intro of ‘Scared of the Unknown’ might be a bit to Metallica-ish but this track has more metal in it than Lars Ulrich’s trashcan snaredrum. The hardcore is still there with some typical-but-well-executed breakdowns and shouted vocals, but these guys know how to riff. Tracks like ‘Here Today’ just make you want to put those horns up and bang some head. Or mosh into the guy next to you; whatever you prefer.

 

I’m not going to spend too many words about this record; its just quality metal which should be loved by old-school thrashers and xHardcorekidSx. Vocalist Sal Lococo sings “Here Today Gone Tomorrow”, but fortunatly he isn’t talking about his band.