ALBUM REVIEW: Locked In Time – Restraining Order
No matter what else has been brought into the scene over the years and decades, there has always been a special space for bands who keep hardcore fast and punky. This is, after all, how it was originally intended by the likes of MINOR THREAT, S.O.A. and the CIRCLE JERKS, and while you’d think they might have run out of ways of playing the same few chords within the usual minute or so they’re permitted, there are still some bands who manage to keep this old school style feeling fresh and fun. 2019’s This World Is Too Much – the debut LP from Western Massachusetts’ RESTRAINING ORDER – is one of the finest examples of this in recent memory, and it means that the arrival of their sophomore full-length Locked In Time this Friday via Triple B Records is a big one.
Four years may have passed between records, but RESTRAINING ORDER pick right back up where they left off – quite literally in fact, as opener Addicted (Reprise) begins with previous album closer Addicted To This Life playing in reverse before the band launch into the first of 12 high-energy ragers. Vocalist Patrick Cozens sings once again of his love for a life in a scene that comes with its fair share of knocks, thereby establishing the motivational, chest-beating feel of the record; whether it’s second track Left Unsaid’s defiant assertions of “Nothing you did, nothing you said / Could hold me down or get in my head”, or recent single Another Better Day’s emphasis on leaving the past in the past, Locked In Time has that classic inspirational feel that doesn’t shy away from the hardships of life, but always promises to overcome them.
It helps of course that the band deliver all this with such infectious energy, once again embellishing their fast hardcore style with all manner of hooks and melodies that feel not only indebted to the genre’s earliest heroes, but also even to the punk legends that came before them. Tracks like Fight Back and On The Run are loads of fun, their respective hooks of “If we feel like we’re under attack / Know that we’re gonna fight back” and “We’re on the run / And we’re gonna have some fun” evoking the kind of arms round your mates, ready for anything mentality on which this entire scene was built. It’s as good as this particular style of hardcore gets, a variation on a classic formula where you can’t help but get swept up in the love and excitement and exuberance of it all.
Of course, it should go without saying that RESTRAINING ORDER aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel here, but you’d have to be a real snob to hold that against them. There’s a real liveliness even to the sound of the record, the mix placing the listener right there in the room with them whilst mercifully avoiding the kind of ear-bleeding rawness that can come with some of the classics that are clearly among the band’s most obvious influences. It is also worth emphasising that there are a few extra bits – an acoustic guitar here, a psychedelic twist there, particularly in the album’s later tracks – that add an element of nuance and variation which ensures that the record remains fresh and thoroughly engaging all the way up to the moment the band tear across the finish line just inside the 21-and-a-half-minute mark.
Short and sweet then, though admittedly a full six minutes longer than its predecessor, Locked In Time is one of those records that’s hard to listen to just once. You’ll pick up its hooks straight away, but as soon as it finishes you’ll want to go again so you can shout them just that little bit louder. Hardcore may take many wonderful forms in 2023, but here is a record that remembers that its central requirement has always been to put fire in your veins.
Rating: 8/10
Locked In Time is set for release on July 21st via Triple B Records.
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