ENABLER – ALL HAIL THE VOID (7.5)

Is hardcore punk even a thing anymore? The Milwaukee music scene has recently spawned Enabler, a band hardcore punk band with a “the world is fucked” vibe (whatever next?) bringing a bunch of other genres and styles to the mixing pot. Let’s see how palatable the ‘soundtrack to the worlds demise’ really is.

Good traditional hardcore punk is hard to come by in this age of countless ‘core’ genres with the roots seemingly being thrown by the wayside with hardcore fast become more and more diluted since its inception in the late 70’s. Legends such as Black Flag and D.O.A lighted the way previously. Enabler aren’t reviving the genre by any means, we’ll leave that to the underground ‘hardcore lives’ crowd. The riffs are fast, punchy and aggressive with a pounding backline of double-bass-filled drum patterns to keep the mosh running but there are some parts which are not by any means hardcore punk, and that’s where Enabler are at their strongest.

They throw in elements from all over with some thrashy-ass riffs á la the early days of Megadeth and Kreator, which really liven up certain sections giving that 180+ tempo which is the boiling optimum for circle pits. It drops down to some Meshuggah-esque grooves too as shown in the intro to title track ‘All Hail The Void’, which will have fans head-bobbing like nobody’s business.

If you are looking for a revival of hardcore punk, maybe underground Los Angeles is a good place to look because Enabler are grabbing and running in this case. True to the style some of the songs do unfortunately sound exactly the same, creating a lull in the middle of the album where the pace is lost and riffs just run inanely into each other. The muddiest of muddy tones slowly starts to grind away at your ear drums but despite this ‘All Hail The Void’ has moments of brilliance, bringing that Black Flag vibe into the 21st century but making sure Metallica come too.

Reviewed by Chris Chandler.
All Hail the Void is out now on Phobitact Records.

You’ll like this if… you were hoping that someday a Hardcore-thrash crime fighting duo would come to save us all.