HATEBREED

If you currently find yourself lacking the necessary motivation to do anything beyond staring at the wall, it is almost certainly because HATEBREED haven't released a new album in nearly six years. Quite what we all did before Jamey Jasta's crew began to spread their unwavering gospel of positivity and bone-crunching good times is a mystery, but since the release of 1997's "Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire", no band has had such a tangibly inspirational effect on the global heavy music audience. An all-encompassing force for massive riffs, motivational rhetoric and the noble art of not letting those bastards get us down, HATEBREED provide such a vital service that their absence from the scene can often seem like a cruel trick.

"Fatal Paradox" follows the biggest gap between albums that the band have ever allowed. Admittedly, HATEBREED are almost permanently on the road and you would have to put some serious effort in to have completely avoided seeing them over the last six years, but such is the strength of their illustrious catalogue that the prospect of a new album has never been less than tantalizing. Fortunately, the follow-up to 2020's "Weight of the False Self", which remains second only to the mighty "Perseverance" in the grand pantheon of HATEBREED joints, is now here and ready to deliver another jolting dose of the life-affirming good stuff. If you have ever loved or even liked this band, prepare to smash up your immediate surroundings with a stupid, shit-eating grin on your face.

Diehard fans will be able to infer that this is a particularly great HATEBREED album when they hear the opening riff to former single "Kill Count Increase". Dark, doomy and firmly in the metallic zone, it confirms that the band's formula has survived for another round of pit-inciting bravado, and the genre-defining hybrid that has lasted for more than 30 years is still the most satisfying rush of pure, musical adrenalin available to human ears. Likewise, Jasta's voice has never sounded more powerful or steeped in gravitas: when he shreds that leathery throat at full throttle, the urge to dive into the melee with fists flying is as irresistible now as it was when we first went apeshit to "I Will Be Heard" 24 years ago.

In many ways, there is little point in analyzing the fine details of "Fatal Paradox". A genuinely great HATEBREED album is as easy to understand and as simple to explain as it gets. A concise and merciless ten-song assault (with a bruising cover of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's "Poison Planet" tagged on as an exhilarating bonus),this is everything diehard fans could have hoped for. Easily the heaviest album in HATEBREED history, it feels like a celebration of the last three decades, with elements from all of the band's previous albums smashed together to form a near-perfect amalgam of iron-plated hardcore tropes, lacerating vocal hooks and lyrics that kick you in the ass and give you a warm, consolatory hug simultaneously. From the blistering thrash-core aggro and ruinous breakdowns of "The Carrion Choir" ("Remember who you are!"),to the howling feedback and scythe 'n' slam brute force of "Sacrifice Season", which features a magnificent cameo from OBITUARY's John Tardy, and on to the epic, ingenious finale of "None Left To Save", "Fatal Paradox" is a joyous and obnoxiously thrilling addition to the HATEBREED catalogue. It's okay, folks: Normal service is resumed, and no one does it better.