Final offering from the Netherlands’ BACKFIRE!, who have been active on and off again since 1993. Fast metallic riffs, plodding breakdowns, and gruff vocals call to mind the usual suspects of this style like MADBALL and CRO-MAGS. I wasn’t particularly moved by any of these tracks, but I trust there’s a fanbase who will appreciate a swan song from this legacy act.
Hate Season starts off making you think that you’re about to venture down a path of basic meat-and-potatoes punk and hardcore. However, by track three (”Sin Futuro”), you quickly realize this is something unique, a wave that is powerful, devastating, and disinfecting. The songs rocket through and blend perfectly, almost as if the entire record were a laid-out rock opera, or perhaps a Greek tragedy. Sharp, fast bursts are crafted around starts and stops, and out of nowhere, weird little instruments pop in and out so fast that you question whether you even heard them. As the fifteen songs carry on, they start to lose a bit of the unhinged quality and adopt a more direct and melodic hardcore and punk design, without giving up the vibrant and compelling parts that work to make Hate Season so terrific.
