Your Demise - The Kids We Used To Be (2010)

Being from the same town as the original members of ‘Your Demise’ probably makes me subconsciously loyal to them and likely to like them more (even though this is not the case for ‘Enter Shikari’). However, ‘The Kids We Used To Be’ departs from the ‘SAHC’ sound I know and love.

The most significant change is that vocalist George Noble has been replaced- after some supposedly quite brutal band politics- with Centurion’s old frontman; Ed McRae. The new voice is a lot less pummelling, and the feel music matches that.

While there is still some aspects that hint towards the old 'Your Demise' sound, they have pretty much completely re-invented themselves, which is perhaps to their credit. While the new sound is less brutal (there are very few (if any) noteworthy breakdowns, and the riffage on the whole has toned down noticeably), it’s not quite ‘soft’: It is still most definitely still hardcore (though perhaps a leaning towards metalcore).

It perhaps falls into a style I’ll have to call ‘sing-along hardcore’. Some may perhaps call it selling out. Live, they’ve changed their crowd appeal: Previously it’s been all about giving the people in the pit something to dance to; now it’s more about giving the keen fans at the barrier something to sing to. And I’m not such a die-hard fan that I won’t accept a band changing their sound. Besides, the title track is fun to sing along to live, just in the same way ‘Burnt Tongues’ is fun to throw windmills to.

They may have lost their focus on breakdowns, but this is not all a bad thing. As a result, ‘The Kids We Used To Be’ has a lot of pace and energy that I see as very important in a hardcore record. While a decent breakdown may energise the crowd, it kills the pace of the song like nothing else. The breakdowns themselves (the best probably being the one in ‘Shine On’) are not as slow as they used to be and seem to flow with the rest of the song more than they used to.

The standout track for me on this album is the title track (The Kids We Used To Be). It has great energy, an awesome riff, and one of the best live sing-along choruses to have appeared in quite a while. The clean singing may not be to everyone’s tastes, but if you don’t like clean singing then this is probably not the kind of hardcore you like anyway.

7/10

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1. MMX
2. Miles Away
3. Scared Of The Light
4. Life of Luxury
5. Teenage Lust
6. The Kids We Used To Be...
7. Get The Fuck Out Of Little Rock
8. Like A Broken Record
9. Shine On
10. Give Up, Get Dropped, Lose Out
11. xo