ALBUM REVIEW: Year Of The Gun – Eternal Struggle

The title and timing of the debut full-length from ETERNAL STRUGGLE feels painfully prophetic. Year Of The Gun comes out just weeks after the band’s home country of Israel engaged in some of the worst violence with Gaza’s Hamas rulers in years. Hundreds lost their lives, with casualties particularly severe on the Palestinian side. Mercifully, at the time of writing, a ceasefire seems to be holding, but the sheer horror of recent weeks means lyrics like “While they make war, we count the corpses” hit especially hard at the moment.

ETERNAL STRUGGLE’s vision has always been to channel their feelings of anger and frustration into their music. Specifically, this manifests itself in a no holds barred brand of heavy hardcore with an emphasis on PMA and unity. It’s no surprise then that the results draw strong comparisons to the likes of SICK OF IT ALL and MADBALL. Indeed, Year Of The Gun was even produced by the latter’s former guitarist, Brian ‘Mitts’ Daniels. Daniels is an obvious fit for the record, capturing the band with a crisp, clear and consistently beefy sound.

The four-piece nail their colours to the mast right away with Manifesto – a 34 second intro piece. The aggro is immediately high, with vocalist Ori Frank railing against “A broken system that’s built on suffering.” From here, they roll straight into Point One, a song which quickly lays out the primary gear of the record. It’s pretty standard heavy hardcore fare, with gang vocals, chugging riffs, and a general raging high energy. As a vocalist, Frank employs quite a straightforward hardcore bark throughout Year Of The Gun. It’s not the most versatile performance, but it’s always charismatic and furious, and exactly what this kind of music needs.

While heavy hardcore is clearly their weapon of choice, there are a few other tools in ETERNAL STRUGGLE‘s arsenal. For example, the third and title track features an acoustic guitar-led mid-section with a short melodic guitar solo. Several songs also stray into more metallic territory – the album’s eighth track To My Enemies being a prime example. There are even hints of nu-metal at points, such as in the stop-start riffing of Indoctrination, or the sheer bounce of On Broken Backs. All three of the tracks mentioned make for some of the album’s strongest, each hitting like a 10-pound sledgehammer.

It bears mentioning that a runtime of 37 and a half minutes does feel a touch too long for Year Of The Gun. There may be a few extra influences in the mix, but it would still be a stretch to call this a varied record. For the most part, ETERNAL STRUGGLE operate at an unwavering 10 when it comes to straight-up rage and heaviness. That’ll be enough for plenty of people, but those who prefer things a little more dynamic may start to lose interest as the album goes on.

That isn’t to say this record falls off a cliff or anything. In fact, there are still some quality moments towards the album’s end. Eleventh track Pride Kills, which serves as a sort of motto for the band, makes for another hard-hitting highlight. It ends with Frank belting out a call to unity as the band kick into a final monstrous breakdown replete with a metalcore ‘blegh‘. Propaganda which follows is also an interesting piece. This one’s less than a minute long, and sees bassist Guilad Piñevsky handling vocals in Spanish for a change. One of its riffs even seems to pay tribute to Daniels’ old band and their iconic Pride (Times Are Changing).

Laying a slight issue of length aside, there’s not much to complain about here. Perhaps the band could’ve cut the quite unnecessary remix of the title track which the closes the album, but other than that everything else is solid. It certainly makes for great gym or mosh fuel, and there’s no question ETERNAL STRUGGLE have something important to say. Ultimately, that’s what hardcore is all about – challenging the powerful and standing up for the downtrodden. It’s something we should all get behind, in the hope that one day the “Year Of The Gun” will come to an end.

Rating: 7/10

Year Of The Gun is set for release on June 4th via Upstate Records.

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