Overcome

Item: When Beauty Dies
Author: sesspool

When Beauty Dies

(1997)

Reviewed by sesspool

Discogs YouTube

Label Tooth & Nail RecordsDead Zine2002

hardcore metalcore

This is a very good hardcore album... that has to be said first and foremost here. Overcome is the true original pioneers of what is now known as hardcore. Just because the Focused made a couple albums of strange and weak hardcore two years before overcome made their powerful debut Blessed Are the Persecuted, does not mean that most bands found their entire influence from the Focused. IMO Overcome is the original.

That said, the first thing I noticed about this album when I eagerly opened the packaging and put the cd in the cd player (yeah back in 97) was the first track, A Case for Life and the first chord on the album was much heavier and deep than anything on Blessed. While I enjoy Blessed more than any other Overcome album I've heard to date, I still feel that the mention must be made that this album was something never heard before in hardcore... by the time this was released, Strongarm, Six feet Deep, and many other groups had already made hardcore a common household name for music. This album redefined the genre and brought music one step closer to the inevitable change toward the modern style of Zao. This was a much more metal oriented hardcore that still stayed true to its hardcore roots. The vocals of Jason Stinson are just oddly incredible. Never slowing down, never allowing for an understandable word (well, ok, maybe one or two) yet always emotional and enjoyable.

The lyrics on this album range from subjects of abortion, pornography and bigotry; to the power of God, Apathy, Forgiveness and Self-less living. This is one thing I have always respected about this band. They never took the road of 'no Christ' and never took the stance of 'only god'. They have shown us all with every album that being a Christian is about not only the God, and the deity you owe your salvation, but about the issues of this world as well. God does have an opinion on events and issues of today, and the ignoring of these issues does not make us more 'holy' than those who address these issues.

Musically, this album has a lot to offer the hardcore kid, as well as the metal head. Almost all who I've shown this album to have praised its sophistication, intensity and superiority to other hardcore albums. So all this praise and only a rating of 6? Well, yeah. While this album is a good album, let's face it, it takes a true hard core loyal person to listen to this album many times in a row without tiring of the sound... and for me, I have trouble listening to the entire thing once. The mixing is a little muddy and doesn't have a whole lot of umph to it. It's mainly just there. The drums are mixed far behind the music, and there's an annoying hall effect on almost every instrument... overall, the sound gives a large lack of intense feeling in comparison to Blessed Are the Persecuted, and other hardcore groups such as Strongarm.

The concept of the album, the lyrics, and overall musical content is very good, very intense... but the production and mixing of the album takes away much of the long-lasting quality one would hope for in a musical collection item. If you are one who loves hardcore or never listen to one album more than once a month, this album is ideal for you. Chances are, if you just kinda like hardcore and invest wisely in your musical collection (at least attempt to) you may want to save this for a later date and get something more time-withstanding than this.

6/10