37Stabwoundz. Zzzz. ZZZZ!!. Z means you make either hiphop or rapmetal. 37Stabwoundz makes neither. 37Stabwounds would’ve made a lot more sense. Furthermore, it’s pretty hard to obtain 37 wounds due to stabbing when you’re from Kerkrade, Heerlen, Hoensbroek or Tilburg. The name is stupid and does not do justice to the music, which is a whole lot more than rapmetal or standard hardcore.

All the music on ‘Embrace Solitude’ is written by guitarist Servé Olieslagers (which translates to Servay Oilbutchers), whom you might know from Dutch hardcore band Born From Pain, a band which Servé left in 2001. The music on ‘Embrace Solitude’ is very intense and is like a mix of Machinehead, Skinlab, Pantera, Biohazard and Project86 (Drawing Black Lines) with a touch of Life of Agony and maybe a little Lamb Of God (or is that just wishful thinking?). Due to the fact that guitarist Olieslagers wrote all the music, this has become very much a guitar-oriented album with little to no pauses. The sound is bombastic and thick. It sounds like it’s wired shut and there’s no space for air. Often in hardcore you hear a breakdown where the bass player plays a loop or something like that, giving the music some oxygen. A band like Lamb Of God somehow gets away with having no breaks whatsoever, but 37Stabwoundz should put of them in the music.

That doesn’t mean this is a bad album. Certainly not. It is fun to listen to. It’s very aggressive, with good (overcomplicated?) guitarplay, good drums, good vocals and decent production, but after four or five songs you pretty much get the picture and your ears grow tired due to the aforementioned fact concerning oxygen.
Play this album in sequences of 3 or 4 songs at a time, then take a walk in a park somewhere, come back, but another 4 songs on, eat, watch TV, then come back and play the remaining tracks. You’ll like it better that way.
With all this added up I say 37Stabwoundz is a good, talented band, that makes intense unrelenting hardcore-crossover-metal. Still, I feel the music should be more balanced to truly be great. Now, it’s somewhere between 7.5 and 8, but they can be anywhere from 8.5 and 9.5 if they make some changes in the music-making process. That said, all visitors of Pinkpop really should still drag their asses to the North Stage at 1600 hrs tomorrow, ‘cause 37Stabwoundz is likely to play a kick ass show ten times better than all the stupid crap on the festival this year.
Nice artwork on the cover by the way.