First a little snippet from MORAL DECAY's MySpace page where they explain e little about themselves:

"We started in 2000. we are somewhere in the middle of punk and metal, some punkers say we're too metal, some metal heads say we are too punk. We say that the people who say either of those are fucking morons and need to loosen up, we're music. either like it or don't."

They do have a point. Although I personally find there's a lot to like about this record, according to today's music standards these guys are kinda hard to pigeonhole. In a lot of ways that can be a good thing, because when music becomes too formulaic, it's time to move on and do something different. But that's just my personal opinion and I digress...

Anyway, the way these guys combine hardcore/punk with metal riffs (and I mean real metal, not the nu or trendy variety) is quite different from your average contemporary metalcore-act. Back in the 80's when this kind of crossover was still new and refreshing no doubt this would have been huge. Parts of it even remind me of early CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. Of course what has happened since then is that hardcore/metal-crossover became the new standard so now we're stuck with thousands of boring interchangeable tough guy bands. Which means that by today's standards a musically interesting band like MORAL DECAY is now considered 'weird'. Sad really. Still, it's not a perfect record. I could have done without the cheesy keyboard intermezzo or the ska track (ugh!) but on the other hand I kinda like the folky album closer, even though I'm not sure whether its meant as a joke or not. The rest of the album is way preferable over any release by SICK OF AGNOSTIC BIOBALL.

- Van Hoften

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/moraldecay

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