Record Label: Indianola Records
Genre: Hardcore
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com link

Struck Down come from Erie, Pennsylvania with a mission to destroy your eardrums and have fun doing it. Now Struck Down label themselves as a hardcore band, which they are, but they offer more than your run-of the mill hardcore band. After just listening to and reviewing yet another generic hardcore bands, Struck Down opened my eyes to the fact that some of those hardcore bands like to break away from the mold occasionally.

“Revolution” is still a hardcore album, but there are other elements in there that liven things up. Struck Down do have a hard rock sound and occasionally break out into a fast beat, Sex Pistols-style meltdown. In fact, some of the vocals, which are more understandable than most, remind me a lot of a 90’s hard rock/nu-metal band called Snot.

There are some decent songs on “Revolution” which, coming from me is amazing considering my hardcore hating (unless it’s porn), but unfortunately most of the songs suffer from the typical hardcore formula of ultra fast drum/bass/guitar and quasi-screamed vocals. The guitarist does have his moments with a few good guitar lines but they only pop up for an instant and are gone just as quickly as they came. Probably the best track on the album, “Purity” mixes a toned back hardcore approach with an ongoing harmonic riff and comes off sounding like a hardcore version of Black Sabbath’s “The Wizard”.

When all is said and done and the disc has come to a close, I’ll admit that I liked a few songs off of “Revolution” but in the end, it did not convert me into a kung fu-kicking hardcore mosh pit junkie. Struck Down did manage to change things up and break the hardcore mold. For someone who is getting tired of the same old hardcore shit or just breaking into the scene, you should check out “Revolution” for the simple fact that for a hardcore album, it’s different.

Bottom Line: A hardcore album that tries to spice things up but overall comes off sounding like a hardcore album.
Notable Tracks: Purity, Mosh Pit
Overall Rating: