Reviews list for Vision of Disorder - Vision of Disorder (1996)

We're now heading towards a transitional era where the old-school hardcore roots of metalcore are drifting away slightly more to begin a new heavier wave of metal. A glimpse of promise for the mid-90s before the next decade!

The 90s might seem like p*ssed off Hell for the world, with sieges and wars on the rise in different parts of the planet. Where do some of the witnesses put their rage? In music! Many 90s extreme bands aggressively tackle the world's problems in their sound, whether it's rap metal like Rage Against the Machine, or metalcore like this band Vision of Disorder. This band from Long Island has shaken the world as much as their peers, with the extreme metallic hardcore of their 1996 self-titled debut!

Just listen and learn with the opener "Element" for angry heaviness. "Watering Disease" shows the band really testing the metalcore waters. "Through My Eyes" has violent lyrics of aggression, as Tim Williams threatens to "pull the f***in' trigger, watch your head combust". Then things get more melodic in "Viola" with creative Deftones influence.

"Liberation" is another prime mix of metal and real hardcore punk, as opposed to Devin Townsend's "fake punk" phase at that time. "Divide" has some more of their early metalcore than bands like All That Remains and While She Sleeps probably wouldn't exist without. "Ways to Destroy One's Ambition" has some ambitious motives while sticking to the metalcore guns. "Suffer" originally appeared in a compilation album a year earlier, and it has the best drumming in this album, with lyrics fitting well for this hardcore sound, "Our generation slapped with a f***in' ‘X’".

"Zone Zero" is an amazing combination of melody and heaviness. "D.T.O." is another heavy highlight, recently covered by Eighteen Visions in their own cover album named after the year the Vision of Disorder album was released, 1996. "Excess" continues the excessive amount of metal and hardcore combined, put in great usage to appeal to fans of both territories. "Gloom" has some Filter influence going on, a cool way to end the album.

In conclusion, Vision of Disorder's self-titled debut is another highly essential album of 90s metalcore. The golden age of metal has been considered to be the 80s, but the 90s was in fact the golden age for the earliest metalcore, and this offering is one gem from that era!

Favorites: "Element", "Watering Disease", "Liberation", "Divide", "Suffer", "D.T.O."