Embrace Today – We Are The Enemy

As some may or may not know, I have a soft spot for wild straight edge(no drugs, alcohol, or tobacco prodcuts) bands, especially ones off Deathwish Records. Luckily for me, it just so happens that Embrace Today is militantly straight edge. I knew it while lsitening to the song Bullets Over Boston when they shout “I remain true to myself, true to my friends, true to my X” needless to say, I was pretty happy. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, there seems to be no songs about heartbreak, its mostly violent lyrics about being independant. The vocals are pretty hard too, the guy has a pretty dire scream, it’s fairly intense. The guitarists seem to focus mainly on throwdown riffs, they keep chuggy breakdowns to a minimum, and throw in fancy high notes. At the current moment, I can’t hear the bass player because my volume is turned way down to not disturb any of the sleeping people in my house, but its not very dominant. This seems to be one of those bands which lets the other instruments drown out the sound of the bass entirely to the untrained ear. The drummer impressed me the most out of the entire band. As usual, I have to mention the double kick, which is played faster by this guy than almost any other band I’ve heard. But not only is it fast, but he plays these weird, inconsistant patterns that must have been terrible to memorize and not only does he just play his double kick fast, but he keeps playing the rest of his drum kit as if nothing else were happening. I would love to see this band play a show, and I hope to sometime. I can only imagine the mosh-pit that would spring up, all I know is that it would probably be very intense, and I’d probably get hurt, just like I usually do in a pit(my ankles seem to get the brunt of the pain, especially when a circle pit starts up, although I’m more likely to take a spin-kick to the chest if this band were playing). So I don’t have anything to really complain about when it came to this album, it’s been in my posession for a long time, but I guess I had to listen to it a few times and let my musical tastes mature a bit before I really appreciated it.

If you like the metal influenced hardcore that makes up most of todays scene, then this album was probably made for your enjoyment. They remind me somewhat of Ringworm, except with more structured songs. I doubt this cd would be that hard to get a hold of either, I’ve seen it in various cd stores around Edmonton. Although it’s probably around $20(if you happen to live in Canada) because cd stores don’t care so much about their customers, often referred to as people, as they do the capital they bring in, often referred to as money. Deathwish has never let me down though(that’s not actaully true, I hated Modern Life is War, but I’m willing to forget about that little travesty), so I not only recommend Embrace Today, but some of the other bands on there like Blacklisted and Cast Aside. They’re pretty good as well, and spending money on them is much smarter than wasting money on something like The Distance or Hawthorne Heights(because I can never pick on them enough). I’m glad I never got stuck in that dead-end of a trend, I’d definitely feel pretty stupid if I had.