THE BANNER

Not every hardcore kid in 2005 is wearing thrift-store Alf t-shirts and pouting his way through hackneyed radio choruses. Consider THE BANNER, a collective so toxic and wrong, they could only be from New Jersey. Their hardcore is of the old-school, east-coast, punk-derived variety, and it encompasses influence from all over the map. One minute they sound like a tar-caked SAMHAIN, the next, they're flailing through a black metal sludge crust, or cranking a traditional metallic hardcore raveup through the amps of NEUROSIS using VOIVOD's chords. This is powerful stuff, with an evil, menacing vibe and striking black-and-white artwork, using primeval tales of horror, death and vampirism as metaphors for more tangible and personal concerns.

At the black, impaled heart of it, "Each Breath Haunted" is hardcore, albeit hardcore with a malevolent, filthy art-school streak a mile wide. They're gonna lose a lot of people with the three straight minutes of pulsating noise that starts halfway through "Hell On a Horse" (and leads into a brooding, quiet instrumental interlude called, well, "Interlude") — indeed, more traditional-minded hardcore fans are gonna love pieces of this record, while hating the living shit out of momentum-killers like this one. This is one of those albums that doesn't quite succeed in what it sets out to do, but is so damn ballsy and ambitious, you've gotta give the band credit for trying.

Though it does meander a bit, "Each Breath Haunted" is well worth picking up just for the moments where THE BANNER are firing on all cylinders. Plus, if you're already sick of the status quo in metal and hardcore, it never hurts to throw your dollars down in support of a band attempting to be a little different. A band on the cusp of something mind-bogglingly great.