After a two-year absence from the international hardcore scene, Strife are back with their third studio album, ‘Angermeans’. The band perfectly picks up where they left off four years ago: A hard, in-your-face fusion between hardcore and metal that can be seen as a logical follow-up to previous album ‘In This Defiance’. There’s a good balance between the fast songs and the slower songs, which have a definite ‘chugga-chugga’ metal feel to them. Think Victory Records, add a little percussion (Hey, that’s what you get when a band goes on tour with Sepultura!) and some synthesizer intros and outros and you’ll get the musical idea.

Rick Rodney still sounds as pissed off as he did on ‘In This Defiance’, but I think his voice has lost a bit of power since then. I always thought he was being tortured during the recording of that album, so that’s not that big a surprise. The lyrics deal with the struggle with both oneself and the world around. I like the basic hardcore better than the more experimental keyboards/percussion parts, because the band seems to loose too much power there. Good record, although I don’t like it as much as ‘In This Defiance’, which fucking blew me away. I am still looking forward to seeing them tear it up live though!