Upon first listen to this harsh collection of raucous youth angst I thought to myself, "Whoa, is this the Boy Sets Fire that I know?" Well it wasn't. I was listening to a younger more out of control BSF. Some of the songs seemed a bit experimental and uncharacteristic of BSF, but that only adds to the mystique surrounding one of the east coast's most famous hardcore bands. Remember these are random songs, older EP's, and some newer stuff so the variation in sound and quality is quite dramatic. Yet on any given BSF album song styles go from darkly disturbing and hard as fuck with slow grinding gears, then jumps to some finger snapping little ditty to sip lemonade to while talking stock market trends. Then sometimes it'll be totally out of left field with the hardest grindcore imaginable. But with all this tempo variance one thing remains the same, great thought-provoking song writing.

Running with confrontational social and political prose, Nathan Gray's flimsy screams and beast man growls are the stuff that makes you nervous. Such great voice range in hardcore bands is a rare thing and is often overlooked instead for just the hardest riffs. "Turn the Key" makes you feel like an asshole or something. Some people might have to leave the room for that one. It's brutally agro, slow, and hard-hitting - like watching a snuff flick of a baseball bat bludgeoning. "Sucker Punch Training" is an anti-war song that takes no prisoners - except government officials. The song asks penetratingly uncomfortable questions and slaps them around like little bitches; hard-as-fuck. When a cover of The Dead Kennedy's "Holiday in Cambodia" came on I looked at the screen and said, "Oh that's where the inspiration comes from, duh." BSF takes me back to the bands in high school - hardcore outfits that were always practicing loud as fuck in the middle of the night. I always wondered how the parents didn't go nuts from all that ungodly racket and screaming - wondering why they wasted all that money on Billy's guitar lessons if he wasn't even going to play "real music." Old people don't get it. Which is as it should be - a lot of people can't stand it, but this is hardcore folks. Anyone who considers themselves true core fans of the genre should know and respect these five guys from Delaware, they've been "hard" at it for eleven years now. Kicking ass and pumping tweeters, with the shit hardcore dreams are made of.