All Out War - Truth in the Age of Lies (1997)^{Release ID: 15261}

Billed as thrash metal/hardcore/crossover, New York's All Out War first appeared on the radar in 1992 with their debut release on Gain Ground coming five years later.  The band had been around for seven years by this point and had undertaken various demo, EP and Split releases prior to committing a full eleven tracks to record.  I am not a big follower of this crossover scene and therefore don't really have much to draw parallel with when reviewing it but I can tell you that overall it isn't very good.

Let's start on a positive.  The band should get an A+ for effort as their blending of the styles works well, with breakdowns and thrashy riffs providing the required contrast.  But herein lies the problem because that's all this record is.  It might as well be one long track as unless you are paying any particular attention to it you won't notice one track stop and another begin.

The band just didn't have enough skill or invention at this point in their careers to really go for such a lengthy release, their material would have worked so much better in continuing with shorter format releases.  In fairness, if I were more of a fan of this style it might work better for me but I am guessing most fans would struggle with this even.  The punk/hardcore beat that the drums give keep the energy levels up nicely despite the laborious nature of proceedings and the guitars do stray into more mid to slow-paced territory on the odd occasion but still nothing to break the monotony overall. 

I spent the morning looking for something different to review as I try to expand my metal horizons so All Out War just got unlucky perhaps that I dropped on them but other than the fact that vocalist Mike Score sounds like Steve Reynolds from Demolition Hammer, I found little to like.