With Honor

Hardcore is a great genre, that is littered with so many bands, that sometimes its hard to find a band that genuinely excited you and makes you take notice of the way THEY play hardcore. Whether it be with introspective song structures and lyrics, harrowing screams, furious banging on the drum kit or a relentless aural assault of pummeling guitar riffs (holy extreme use of adjectives, Batman!)

One thing I look for is an earnest sincerity in song writing, where the bands passion truly shines through - cause if they are just a cookie cutter formulaic entity with no rhyme or reason behind their guitar riffs and angered shouts, then how can I be expected to get into their music, if they're truly not into it themselves? Now, this is a pretty brash claim, and how can one truly understand a band's motives? And the short answer is, you can't. But certain bands give off the vibe they truly care about each note played, each hi hat hit, each vocal hook sung. The passion that comes through is obvious in my newest favorite discovery in hardcore, With Honor. Their 2004 release, aptly titled (for the sake of my long winded pompous rant) Heart Means Everything, encompasses emotion, song writing that doesn't get stale, and is among one of the most enjoyable hardcore releases I've heard in recent memory.

If you're gonna do something, do it with passion, or don't do it at all.

(the only video I could find on youtube, but it's still a great track)