Customer Reviews

15 Counts of Arson

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Whether you come from a background of death metal, punk, grindcore, sludge, or whatever else, His Hero is Gone will probably make your favorite band sound like preschoolers.

Like those of early Napalm Death, the songs are only as long as they need to be; caffeine bursts with no rigid compositional logic. However, they're all substantial, bleakly melodic, and full of dizzying, strangely catchy breaks. HHiG might have had the best sense of melody in real American hardcore, neither sappy/poppy nor edging dangerously close to atonal bludgeoning like many crust bands, but actually stirring and emotional in an understated (albeit sometimes depressing and hopeless) way.

The sadistic balance between anguished sludge metal crawls and blast sections makes both extremes hit twice as hard. It's a sort of holistic songwriting intelligence that makes the music feel more "orchestrated" than just played.

The bleak anarcho-primitivism espoused in the lyrics is indeed heavy-handed and difficult to take seriously, but rather than approaching the subject with ranting moralism, they point to basic truths of systematic inequality and blind consumerism and allow the obvious ugliness to speak for itself. This band had the smarts to back up their radicalism.

I think that that is one of my favorite or "the favorite" album i got or i did ever heard. Why? Everything is so perfect. From sound, production, swicthing tempos from fast to slow. Its also very dark and somewhat "creepy". It s also critical to politics, worlds... I think that this is the best album of His Hero is Gone. I have beautifuly drawed booklet. In few words: its not just highly recomended, if you dont have this album and I want to be in (or you think you are)punk/hardcore, you cant be if you dont have this album. Ave triumvirator!!!! Ave His Hero is Gone and 15 Counts of Arson!!!! Superb, Fantastic, Dark, Critical, Big and finaly must must HAVE!!!

Its the most heavy and dark album I`ve ever heard. Its almost heavy as Neurosis. The lunatic asylum ill soundscapes makes you feel that nothing - except - pain and depression is real...
All metal bands are like children playing chess in school when we compare the darkness emanating from this music to His Hero Is Gone sounds...

So how can I describe this? Well, to me it's a mixture of all things great in grind, hardcore, doom, punk et al wrapped up in a very claustrophobic blanket. In other words, very thick and even plodding at times but never boring or contrived. If you don't have this one, do yourself a favor and pick up one of the best albums in heavy music of the last decade. They have a myspace page run by a fan (I believe) and there's some samples of their output there.