Album Review
Regulate – ‘Regulate’ [Album Review]
Overall, ‘Regulate’ (Flatspot Records) is a landmark moment for Regulate. This is not an album to be missed, not unless you want to let inventive, riveting hardcore pass you by.
This is Regulate’s year. After a stacked summer making appearances at This Is Hardcore and The Rumble, followed by touring in support of Vein.fm and Candy, the New York four-piece have been building up more and more momentum in advance of their latest full-length, Regulate (out via Flatspot Records). So with all of that buildup, how does it deliver?
In short: in spades. The band has managed to strike a balance between blasting old-school hardcore that any NY hardcore crew would be proud to call their own and seething, emotive ballads. But added to this are flavours of Latin American roots, pop-punk, and alt-rock. It’s a smorgasbord, and in less capable hands, there’s always the risk of creating a kitchen sink mess. Not so on this album. It’s woven beautifully well; clearly, there were heaps of attention paid by the band to detail, production, and delivery. Much of the reason for this success is the sequencing of the album itself: where else would the salsa of “Ugata” find its most impactful drop in than in classic hardcore track “You & I”? How much better a pairing can you find than the straightforward aggression of “Why Can’t We?” and subsequent melodic banger “Hair”?
Also contributing to this record’s successful delivery are the mercury smooth swings that vocalist Sebastian Paba takes between throat-tearing aggression and melodic singing, on par with the likes of Alexisonfire or Turnstile. In addition to the technical prowess of their hot-cold approach on the record, there’s also the lyrical focus on themes ranging from genocide to policing to the process of making music itself. It’s handled with enough nuance to set it apart from the ham-fisted grappling many bands in the hardcore vein struggle with when talking about those topics.
Overall, Regulate is a landmark moment for the band, an achievement that has come about from nearing on a decade of playing, touring, and recording, with a resilience that is a credit to their home city. This is not an album to be missed, not unless you want to let inventive, riveting hardcore pass you by.
Regulate Track Listing:
1. In The Moment
2. The Crime
3. Why Can’t We?
4. Hair
5. Ugata
6. You & I
7. In This Life And The Next (H.H.C.)
8. Work
9. New York Hates You
10. C.O.P
Run Time: 25:22
Release Date: September 30, 2022
Record Label: Flatspot Records
-
Hardcore/Punk5 days ago
Lust For Life Pay Raucous Tribute to a Punk Rock Classic at Manchester’s O2 Ritz [Photos]
-
Metal11 hours ago
While She Sleeps: “We never wanted to be a band that finds our sound and just sits with that. We’ve always wanted to push the boundaries…”
-
Hardcore/Punk1 week ago
Comeback Kid: “I just loved the hardcore message and I loved that it was about community and looking out for other people”
-
Metal7 days ago
Polaris (w/Silent Planet, Thornhill, Paledusk) Headline Emotional Night at Manchester O2 Ritz [Photos]
-
Hardcore/Punk1 week ago
Knocked Loose (w/Deafheaven, Headbussa) Incite Mayhem at Manchester Academy [Photos]
-
Alternative/Rock4 days ago
The V13 Fix #007 w/ While She Sleeps, Cory Wells, Kid Kapichi and more
-
Alternative/Rock2 weeks ago
The V13 Fix #006 w/ Midnight, Ashes of Billy, Norah Jones and more
-
Culture2 weeks ago
Fender Celebrates 70 Years of the Iconic Stratocaster