Reviews
2005-10-04
Madball is another band that enjoyed the surge in popularity of the hardcore genre in the New York area in the late eighties. The band was formed in 1989 and since then they had four LPs and Legacy is their fifth. The first two albums Madball released, Set It Off and Demonstrating My style, are considered to be their finest albums, although they came out at an early stage of the band's career. Ever since Hold It Down that came out at 2000 the band was on hiatus and now they're coming back with their leading figures, Hoya the bass player and Freddy Cricien the singer.
The album is not bad at all, and although they were on such a long hiatus, it doesn't seem like they lost an ounce of their professionalism. The sound is a typical and traditional New-Yorker hardcore even if the song structure isn't similar to the eighties hardcore and its song structure. At least the length is as it was before – between a minute and a half and three minutes. Adapt And Overcome gives a strong entrance and it ends where Heaven-Hell begins. Heaven-Hell is a great song and you can feel Freddy's pain as he sings that song. Behind These Walls returns to the aggressiveness of the first song, and Legacy, the theme song, is its continuation. It starts off with a quick pace, continues with the mid-tempo aggressive style that runs through the album and ends with a fast and almost punk-like pace. Another song with a call for survival passes and then comes Darkest Days, which Freddy devotes to a friend of his who stood by him during a rough time. He thanks him for turning him into a man, for helping him when he was alone, for giving him strength etc. and as you can imagine, with a lady voice, a slower pace and a far less noisy song, these lyrics would have compiled a great love song. After the song ends we return to the aggressiveness, the heavy sounds and to the call for a fight in order to survive.
As Final Round, a good example for these calls for survival, ends we start to hear the next track, Damned, which starts off with a quick riff, that usually you can find in the power metal genre, but it slows down and in comes Freddy with a style of singing that is very reminiscent of Phil Anselmo(Pantera and Superjoint Ritual, for those of you who forgot). For My Enemies turns the attention to the other side and issues a warning: "You're the enemy and against the enemy Freddy isn't backing down". Who's that enemy? It's up to you to decide. Anyhow, that song blends wonderfully into the next song, the most surprising of the album in my opinion, 100%. This hardcore track is addressing the South American fans, assuring them the band will always fight with them and thanking them for the support. The song is sung in Spanish, which adds to the authenticity, and it's very impressive to hear that Spanish coming from Freddy for a Spanish-speaker like myself. Too bad the song finishes after a minute and eighteen seconds. After that great song comes a weird intro, the longest song on the album, H.C United(3:26) and Worldwide, the last track, but they all offer the same things we heard earlier on the album.
Nir Haviv
