Punishment
“Broken But Not Dead”
(Thorp)
Yawn…like a Melatonin after a night of drinking, “Broken But Not Dead” will leave you dazed, groggy, and more than a little out of it. With tons of tough guys lyrics about the oh-so-predicable hardcore themes, Punishment will leave you with a headache in the morning and not much else. While the guitar work is better (not just another Slayer rip-off) here than on most other metalcore releases, Punishment does little to stand out from the ten trillion other bands clogging the crowded genre.
How about these lyrics from “Sent into Overdrive”, “When I feel like I got nothing else inside of me/ Deep inside a fire ignites/ Sending me into overdrive/ I can feel the anger unleashed/ Smashing through everyone around me.” Uh, great. So you’re mad. How is it that if someone was outside on the street or on TV screaming about how mad they are you’d either walk away or change the channel but when they do it on stage with a guitar and a drum it’s suddenly dynamic hardcore? Please. Learn to write some lyrics, put a song together that isn’t in a rush to get to the obligatory breakdown and stop telling me about your struggle. I don’t want to hear it anymore. Unless you send flowers.
