What’s most impressive about Homewrecker’s third release (aside from all the glorious riffing, naturally) is how deftly the Cleveland act toe the line between metal and punk/hardcore, as well as the difference between modern and classic. The group’s metallic hardcore style certainly feels like it’s lifted from an era long past: the expert melding of classic death (think Obituary and Autopsy, with hints of Dismember), thrash aggression, punk energy, and hardcore fury all bring to mind some of the best acts from when metalcore didn’t have anything to do with melodeath and skinny jeans. Songs like “Constant Eyes” sound like Slayer covering a lost hardcore classic, with nasty guitar-work and breakdowns all over the damn place. “Fade to Oblivion” and “Rope of Skin” offer up brief moments of elegiac respite before coming back with a vengeance immediately afterwards.
Hell is Here Now is certainly memorable, but even the bursts of melody are delivered with brute force. Homewrecker channel that special something that made fellow Northeast Ohioans Integrity and Ringworm so influential: a primal underground edge that makes this fairly clean-sounding record sound uglier than it actually is. I say that entirely as a compliment. The rabid, unhinged quality of the dual vocalists’ delivery only augments the fiery nature of these songs. However, what elevates Homewrecker’s latest above mere hero-worship is how cohesively all of these elements are brought together and not just for nostalgic glee. Hell is Here Now takes a birds-eye view of what made metal and hardcore so great in the 80s and 90s and whittles everything down to their most basic elements: fire and fury. Homewrecker’s Good Fight debut does exactly what their name suggests, destroying everything in sight. What makes this such an impressive album is how much damn fun they’re having along the way.
