This post is about a big contester for my favorite release of the year. Repentance “The Sickness Of Eden” is a crusher from beginning to end. Listening to it gives me hope that nowadays Hardcore records can still be as awesome as when I listened to them almost 20 years ago. There was a phase when I actually started loosing faith in current bands, this faith is restored by listening to this, thankfully.
As you might derive from the title “The Sickness Of Eden” is a pure blood Vegan Straight-Edge record. They carry the flag that was raised by America’s Hardline Records and Earth Crisis in the beginning of the 90’s with pride and decisiveness. The record starts with the sentence “We used to speak of justice!”. This is definitely a nod to the generations that came before.
Musically this opus has the intensity of earlier 90’s vegan straight-edge bands, definitely equally great in delivery. More leaning toward the typical European Vegan Straight-Edge sound, like Arkangel and Reprisal. But here and there they added a aspect of their own creativity that perfectly fits the global picture. Sometimes I wonder why it hasn’t been done earlier.
The packaging is top notch, a slick gatefold cover that has different artwork than the CD artwork. Quality vinyl and I’ve bought two colors from the second pressing. Good Life Recordings did the CD version together with Carry The Weight Records from the United Kingdom. The vinyl version is released by Carry The Weight Records only.
Let it speak for itself by looking at some pictures:
As in the 90’s they picture atrocities against animals, nature and humans on the record’s cover. Shocking pictures aren’t avoided, this part of human behaviour isn’t pretty so it must not be pictured pretty also. And must be shown to reveal it’s sadness and misbehaviour. These themes become more and more relevant as nature is still in decline by human malfunctioning on earth. So I am glad that the forefathers brought this into the topics of Hardcore and that this band still does it with even more urgency than ever!
