Triumph of the Will

Iron Reagan, the thrash/’80s hardcore side project from Richmond, Virginia and featuring members of Municipal Waste, Cannabis Corpse and Darkest Hour, has released their second album The Tyranny of Will on Relapse and it’s nothing short of incredible. Albums like this are few and far between these days. The old school hardcore sound that you grew up on, which is seemingly always making a comeback, is done really well here.  You would expect nothing less from the various projects represented. Each member knows exactly how to write the perfect hardcore song and as a collective they do not disappoint. Each one of the 24 tracks, totaling at just over 40 mins, is as interesting and aggressive as the last.

The opener, “Tyranny of Will,” sets the manic pace of this album. Crunchy guitars with big drums build into a punk rock crescendo that would send any fan into a frenzy of a pit. The second song on the album, “I Won’t Go,” opens with some sort of sample.  This was a common occurrence in the hardcore scene years ago — a device to break up the monotony of moving from song to song. It’s a nice nod to the scene that guys are clearly a part of. This song has a solo, and like the others on the album, it’s short and sweet. Tyranny of Will is not a shredder; it’s a hardcore slug fest.

The third song on the album “Eyeball Gore” is a song about how much their singer hates you. The lyrics on this song are pretty intense. Lines like “I want to see a blade shoved through your face / See strange fluid all over the place / all we want is eyeball gore right now!” sum up the feel of the album: anger. It’s palpable on this album and it thickens up the political and overall dissatisfaction at our society that Iron Reagan is expressing on this album. Tyranny of Will could this be the hardcore record of the year.