Tuesday, February 1, 2011

NO REMORSE. NO SURRENDER.

Lately I've been concentrating mostly on somewhat hipster-approved music genres such as post-metal. Not that there's anything wrong in it, but since I also enjoy MOSHWORTHY METALLIC HARDCORE type of music, I've decided to write an entry about this little french band of called Kickback, and their latest album, No Surrender.


Since 90's, Kickback have been (in)famous for being a violent band. I haven't had a chance of seeing them live, but from what I've heard, during Kickback concerts it's not uncommon to be assaulted by not only other members of the audience, but also by the band itself.

The music is, of course, metallic hardcore in vein of American bands such as Integrity, Gehenna and Merauder. But Kickback does have sort of its own darker, european heavy metal edge on their music, and one can definitely hear influences of black metal on their latter releases. Apparently, Dwid Hellion of Integrity described Kickback as "The only band that can fuse the Cromags with Peter Sotos", which is pretty spot-on. The sense of nihilism and decadence in their music can also be found in their lyrics, which are heavily influenced by the likes of Marquise De Sade and Gaspar Noé.

Speaking of Gaspar Noé, here's a bit of trivia for the ones like me who love both hardcore and quality films: Apparently, Gaspar Noé and Kickback were supposed to work together for a music video, but it never materialized. Which is a shame, because if there's a band that perfectly translates Noés vision into metal music, it has to be Kickback. The band has since paid their respect for the said director as soundbites within their songs and in merch designs, etc.


I'd recommend No Surrender to anyone with decent taste of hardcore music. It can be found in spotify along other releases, but for some reason some of the songs on No Surrender are botched there, so you should just probably download it somewhere or just buy a copy (sadly, it appears to be avaible only on cd and not vinyl). Kickback are apparently working on a new record, and I'm pretty stoked for that. Also I hope they will be touring in northern europe this time around.