August 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 earliest release of the clan, the 1990 debut album by New Jersey-based hardcore/metalcore pioneers Rorschach, Remain Sedate. This month I've decided to nominate the first ever releases of their respective genres, and Rorschach's debut would bring a rebellious future to mankind. If you enjoy the revolutionary sound of metalcore, Rorschach is the band to thank!

https://metal.academy/releases/3130

Here's my review summary:

After the decadent 80s when metal and hardcore were two separate sides, the despondent 90s was when both genres have been united. Vocalist Charles Maggio had to fight his own battles when keeping together 3 jobs; his time in the band, being an accountant, and a father of twins, with all of that energy put into making a real scene-changer. Rorschach has made the perfect stylistic formula for the most brutal hardcore at that time, transcending into a new style they wanted to invent. This is a relentless D-beat-inspired assault of crushing riffs and tormented screams like nothing before! Right from the opener, the album blasts out into metalcore fury right from its very creation. Everything is put together well in chaotic dissonance. The slithering bass and jackhammering drums share the stage with the guitars and vocals. This raw formation of a new sound while channeling their own horrors is kind of what Black Sabbath had done when inventing heavy metal. Like Sabbath, Rorschach was a will-testing pioneer of something new. With this perfect offering, metalcore was born!

5/5

Recommended tracks: "Pavlov's Dogs", "In the Year of Our Lord", "Impressions", "Lightning Strikes Twice", "No One Dies Alone", "Oppress"

For fans of: early Converge, Integrity, Snapcase

I'm a big fan of Rorschach's 1993 follow-up album "Protestant" (4/5) but have never explored their other material. I'll make a note for a rainy day. 

As I occasionally dip my toes into the waters of The Revolution I am most often pleasantly surprised by what I hear from the very earliest releases in the Metalcore genre. There is so much more of a Eighties' hardcore vibe to those earlier releases that I don't really get from more recent (post-2000) stuff. Being a big fan of 80s hardcore myself then it is obvious that this is going to appeal to me on some level. Whilst "Remain Sedate" does contain more metal than, say, Minor Threat, it feels more like there has been an evolution from the one to the other rather than a revolutionary upheavel that rejects the former, taking the passion and aggression of hardcore and sharpening it with a metallic edge that cuts deeper whilst still possessing the sheer dynamic force of the originators. I like this very much and I am beginning to understand some of the attraction of metalcore that I just didn't get from listening to later bands first. As I found with death metal, a journey through the earlier releases of a genre gives a deeper and more detailed understanding of it and a better appreciation of later acts who may have moved the genre further on and who are best appreciated in context.

I think I would actually go as far as to say that I much prefer the metalcore approach to the metallisation of punk than I do that of crossover thrash. Whereas crossover often tried to be flippant or light-hearted metalcore approached hardcore in a much more respectful way and seems to have retained the principals and integrity of the hardcore scene, which I personally find more palatable.

So, yeah, a big thumbs up from me and a 4 star rating, which has the potential to go up a notch with repeat listens.

It has gotten to the point now where it is laughable for me to have thought at one point that metalcore was not for me. It took me such a ridiculous amount of time to understand its quite simple roots, with those origins far from being alien to me. In some of its later formats, modern metalcore does get lost on me, with Rorschach’s debut however, this bemusement is not present. Whilst they appear to have only been a short-lived outfit, the New Jersey quintet made their presence felt on Remain Sedate. Their anti-authority messaging is delivered in a frenzied manner across the twelve tracks here and whilst I do find the sound to be a little thin, which possibly gives them extra points on the underground sound in some opinions, there is no denying their intentions here.

I do not find that Remain Sedate plays too well as background music; it is over far too quickly to be fully appreciated in such circumstances. On the version I have on Spotify, the album is combined with their final full-length release, Protestant and the variation is interesting to hear as the band move into a more screamed vocal style that embraces more sub-genres than the debut does. Remain Sedate though is the darker child of the two that the band birthed. Protestant certainly upped the ante with the grindcore elements and overall heaviness, but in terms of if one album is better than the other, I would argue that they are two different albums from two different points in time.

Whilst it may not start off the best (the opening to Pavlov’s Dogs does annoy me) the album soon settles into a consistent rhythm of a series of short, sharp shocks that jolt the listener along the way. Cleverly though, Rorschach do leave some spaces for breath and atmosphere such as the more “sedate” No one Dies Alone. Whilst this is an obvious change of pace the track lacks none of the grit that is so prevalent across the record. It is clear to see that Rorschach had hit their stride early on in their career and had some great ideas and control around them also. I would hazard a guess based on the second album that they probably went when they were supposed to.

4/5

I've mentioned this before, but I pretty much left metal in the early to mid 80s only to return in the early 2000s. This was thanks to a work colleague that I started sharing music with. He was really into the more extreme forms of metal so I got introduced to loads of death metal, sludge, funeral doom and metalcore in all it's guises. Like Sonny mixing the hardcore with metal in metalcore appeals to me much more than cross-over thrash does. This is quite evident from my ratings over on RYM, where I have rated almost metalcore tagged releases compared to only 10 tagged crossover thrash.

I was already a big fan of Rorcharch's Protestant album, but I had never listened to the debut before. While the follow up album is maybe more diverse in it's influences, Remain Sedate has hardcore punk front and centre in its metalcore approach. It's intense, aggressive and relentless and channel's the disillusionment with the society of the time, which is still relevant today. Powerful stuff.

If I was to rank the two albums, I'd probably go Protestant just a shade higher, but I have them both rated as 4/5