3 out of 5

Label: Uprising

Producer: Chris Common

It’s a mad, mad mess.  It’s an amazing mess, at times, an incredible fairly early example of the kind of screamo spasming punk hardcore that would gain further ground in a Blood Brothers / Daughters world of a few years later.  But it’s still a mess.  ‘I Hope She’s Having Nightmares’ sets its sights on slaughtering us with every trick in the book on opener ‘It Must Be Take a Worm For a Walk Week,’ with its jaw-dropping collision of insane drum fills and madcap guitar soloing while singer Brandon Smith delivers impressive throaty shouts that tread a fine enough line between over-angry-and-sad and good ol’ angry and sad.  The track stops just in time to let you take a breath… before launching into something similar on the next track.  And thus our main issue.  Chris Common does his best to reign all of this madness in – everything has a thick, meaty sound to it that lets the harshness shine through without any one aspect taking the spotlight – but the band’s material is, in general, overwhelming, and the record flows together too much to REALLY make an impact.  Which is why when things slow down for some legit riffs and a scream-along chorus on 1.21 gigawatts, it’s like the second coming of a million hardcore bands and if ‘Eyes’ could’ve found a better balance between the songwriting and the trickery, it’s apparent that there was an amazing non-mess album underneath all the riffage.

That being said, as a pretty short listen, ‘Hope’ is never disinteresting.  But it seems deadset against allowing itself to stay in place for more than a few seconds, which would work if this was a Locust 1-minute long song rampage, but at 4-5 minute lengths… it’s easy to get lost.