Album Review: Career Suicide – Machine Response

It’s been just over a decade since Career Suicide released their landmark debut album, Attempted Suicide, now they are back with their sophomore album, Machine Response, they are bolstered by a new line up that features two of it’s founding core members, vocalist Martin Farkas and guitarist Jonah Falco (Fucked Up), as well as Dallas Good (Sadies, Andre Williams, John Doe, Half Japanese and Elevator to name but a few) on second guitar, along with Jon Sharron on bass and Ian Romano on drums. Career Suicide have delivered something in Machine Response that when played was akin to running into an old friend I hadn’t seen in three decades.

Opening track Cut And Run kicks off Machine Response with a blast of old school hardcore, from this point onwards it’s a no holds barred blast from the past where there is no subtlety or respite from the relentless full tilt assault, Machine Response delivers eleven tracks of brutal in your face hardcore played as it used to be. Career Suicide‘s reappearance coincides with bands such as Boston’s The Proletariat returning to touring, and on the other side of the pond bands like Criminal Mind and The Restarts have been releasing fine hardcore albums and tearing it up live in recent years, and maybe this is an indication that the hardcore scene is refocusing and refining itself as a much needed voice of dissent and protest against current events.

Machine Response veers in and out of pure speed, bursts of melody and chunky tempo shifts that channels the American hardcore scene of the eighties, normally I don’t see the point of recreating something from the past, but this is such a refreshing blast of in your face roots hardcore fury that you can’t help but be impressed by it’s honesty. In an age where many bands that fly the hardcore flag are so far removed from it’s origins that it’s unrecognisable, Career Suicide have taken hardcore full circle back to it’s intense primitive roots, and not before time.