Black Widows

Item: Stops a Beating Heart
Author: BW Diederich

Stops a Beating Heart

(2002)

Reviewed by BW Diederich

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Label Initial RecordsDecapolisSeptember 2002

hardcore punk

Black Widows are from Louisville, KY and their debut mini-cd, "Stops a Beating Heart" is on Initial Records. It's a super group of sorts featuring the vocalist of By the Grace of God and members of The National Acrobat and Automatic.

So what do you do after you've been the singer for a really passionate, and passionately adored hardcore band? Start another band, apparently. One of the best things about this new band is how the members bring influence from their other/old bands without overriding the dynamic of the new group. Unsurprisingly you can hear both The National Acrobat's controlled chaos and By the Grace of God's unique vocal style, but there's something new on this disc. There's a little more punk swagger than either of those bands, a la Panthers or even some of the Hives output. But this is no neo-garage record, these are tried and true hardcore kids.

The 7 songs on this record are done in under 15 minutes and that's probably for the best. If the tracks themselves were longer, or if there were more of them, it'd get extremely repetitive. That's the biggest weakness of Black Widows. The songs are interesting, but they don't capture me or even really stay with me longer than the 13 or so minutes of the cd. The tracks all tend to run together and it seems like one big 13 minute song. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool song, with gang vocals in parts and some chugga chugga along the way, all sprinkled with the swagger I mentioned earlier, but to me it's missing the passion. The record almost sounds like bandwagon jumping, it's the new hipster hardcore sound with swagger and style and it's fun, but it's not all that memorable.

In short, Black Widows have a pretty decent debut. They really do. It could get you singing along at a show, but it's not groundbreaking or mindblowing, just a fun hardcore record with some swagger. I'm curious to see what they'll do on their next release. I think there are glimmers of promise for sure. Track five "The Bean and Those Like Him in New York" has a really incredible beginning, and some of the marriage between chug and swagger are pretty original. It's a decent debut, a taste of the band, if you will. Definitely keep an eye out for 'em.