April 2026 Featured Release - The Revolution Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month's feature release for The Revolution, nominated by me (Shadowdoom9 (Andi)), is the 1995 sole album by Californian straight-edge metalcore band Excessive Force, In Your Blood. After discovering and reviewing this album, I knew this one had feature release potential, especially when I barely included any 90s metalcore releases since I started doing the Revolution feature releases all by myself. So get ready for a glimpse of metalcore's heavier more hardcore-laden roots!

https://metal.academy/releases/38186

Here's my review summary:

Excessive Force made one of the heaviest albums of the scene at that time. It's all within the vocal fury, riffing punches, and drumming assault. And that drumming style would plant the seed for later bands of that genre and maybe even, dare I say it, nu metal. Many of the songs are anthemic mosher that show the groove and the guitar riffing going well together. The instrumentation is definitely worth moshing to, including the audible yet dirty bass and abrasive vocals. The music and lyrics are absolutely earth-shattering and make brutal highlights. It's sad that both this band and the similarily titlted German industrial band Excessive Force are no longer active beyond a couple releases, but let's enjoy them while we can!

4.5/5

Recommended tracks: "Those Who Were", "Distress", "Vengeance", "Misfortune", "In Your Blood"

For fans of: 7 Angels 7 Plagues, Morning Again, Underoath's Act of Depression

This week saw me breaking my cherry with this highly regarded Straight Edge metalcore outfit from California & it's been a reasonably worthwhile venture too as "In Your Blood" certainly hits the spot for some simple yet aggressive hardcore-inspired metal music. There's not a huge amount of variation across the ten tracks with most of the material taking a similar approach but there aren't too many failures here either with only a couple of flatter numbers (see "Vengeance" & "No Excuses") across the ten tracks on offer. Unfortunately, there aren't all that many highlight tracks that stand out from the rest here either though which has certainly played a role in my middling score. The title track is probably the only one that I can identify as being a cut above the others & some of that comes down to the very basic riff construction that's been used throughout the album, leaving the impression that the band members may have only just read "Baby's First Hardcore Riff" or "Metalcore For Dummies". Thankfully, the execution is really tight & the guitar tone is nice & chunky which gives the song-writing a bit of oomph but I could still do without the consistent use of gang vocals & bouncy metalcore breakdown riffs. I guess that's more of a taste thing though as those are obviously generic hardcore traits so you can't really blame a metalcore band for using them. Overall, "In Your Blood" isn't a bad record though & I think most fans of 90's hardcore/metalcore will get a fair bit out of it.

For fans of Reprisal, Chokehold & 7 Angels 7 Plagues.

3.5/5

I was about two minutes into In Your Blood before I a) checked this wasn’t Biohazard and b) where Biohazard’s two first releases came out in relation to this one. By 1995, we had already had two Biohazard records, and I was a bit of a fan at that point, so the similarities were obvious to me from the start of this album. This got me to thinking about how close my listening tastes could have gotten too early metalcore had my teenage years been more driven by the internet. Then again, I am not sure how much of what passes as metalcore nowadays can be compared to this record, it certainly sounds more hardcore than the increasingly rap metal-based style of Biohazard, albeit those gang chants are still very much prevalent here also.

As usual with my forays into The Revolution clan features, if I am not totally alienated and horrified by what I hear on the first track then chances are that I am going to stay for the album duration and that I will have some positives to highlight, and this is the case once again here with Excessive Force. There is no point that I lose interest in In Your Blood, since it maintains a frantic and pummelling pace for its entire duration, it is hard for me not to be engaged throughout. The punk elements get room to shine (‘Backtrack’) whilst the metallic riffs remain the order of the day very much. I like how this stays true to that 90s hardcore sound whilst still being able to inject some new life into that sound.

Vocally speaking, the style is desperate sounding whilst still maintaining that very aggressive front at the same time. I don’t mind the gang chants, although I suspect my entertainment levels wouldn’t drop if they were absent. Whilst I will not pretend that In Your Blood is big on variation, it is one of the reasons why it works for me, I think. When I look at what carries the “metalcore’’ tag nowadays, I cannot help but feel it is a heavily distorted tag that is perhaps overused. If this is what 90s metalcore sounded like, then it is not very far away from a familiar format in all honesty. In Your Blood is most certainly under my skin, if not quite able to penetrate my veins as the title suggests. What it has done is opened my eyes and ears to a scene I had written off too early it appears.

3.5/5

It is pretty obvious to me by now that, when it comes to metalcore, the older stuff resonates with me most. I think that it is due to the harcore punk element being more prevalent on the older stuff, to the degree where albums like this, Earth Crisis' "Destroy the Machines" and Callous' "In the Memory Of…" seem like very different beasts to the more metallic modern stuff. There is a kind of aggressive looseness to the OS sound that has morphed over the years into an excessive tightness that feels more forced and constipated as a result. Of course, this has only been exacerbated by modern recording techniques that make a lot of the more recent metalcore I have encountered sound more like manufactured outrage than true anger at the state of things.

What I am clumsily trying to say is that I really enjoyed this album and was carried along by its aggressive delivery, overwhelming sense of outrage and its vitriolic lambasting of all and sundry. Sure, there is little variety throughout the runtime, but I am a man of simple tastes and these quite basic riffs maybe appeal to me more than more demanding listeners and I found them to be quite effective at getting my toes tapping and my head nodding, which I always view as a win! I was never a straight-edge guy, I used to like my booze and drugs far too much for such moral pontification, but I cannot deny that as a scene it turned out some great records. I am finding that the more I am exposed to these older Revolution releases, the more I discover that there is actually plenty of stuff within its remit that appeals to me, a state of affairs I would never have believed would exist when first I joined Metal Academy. Nice pick, Andi.

4/5

Good reviews, guys! Thanks for all your feedback.