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Obviously cut from the same cloth as Trap Them and This Is Hell, St Louis five-piece Everything Went Black career path has been far from the easiest, with original guitarist Brian “Shagy” Kennedy tragically passing away in March 2011. Their self-dubbed genre title ‘blackened hardcore’ may not be as ridiculous as it sounds, as the band’s sound could actually be nicely summed up by the term – with a strong influence from both early and proto hardcore and black metal bands being worn on Everything Went Black’s sleeve – hell, the band is named after a Black Flag record after all.


Cycles Of Light, their debut record, is just as grimy and visceral as you would hope and expect from the relatively new group, with the droning, almost Mastodon-like looping intro riff of “XI” a great way to introduce the release – and show off the band’s awesome guitar tone as well. Things stay more mid-paced and groovy with the opening of second track “Gods of Atlantis”, but the tempo quickens half-way through to a classic hardcore pace and a great outro beatdown.

The guitar work of Chris’ Moore and Stanton is what really makes the act stick out, and while they do throw in your classic hardcore ‘fast’ riffs and the some neck-destroying breakdowns, their usage of unusual chords and wailing lead sections keep things fresh and the listener on their toes. It’s not hard to imagine that, despite the amount of energy the album packs, Everything Went Black is a group that is best experienced in a sweaty, crammed live environment, and hearing them purely on your iPod probably doesn’t do them justice.

“Kingdoms” is an obvious highlight, with buckets of great guitar work and Brandon Hoffman’s impassioned howls covering the first half of the track, while a highly post-rock influenced middle section of shows off another, more gentle, side to the band. “Thorn Feeders” and “Lifeless”, on the other hand, is pure hardcore, with a devastating riff on the latter at the 0:25 mark tailor made for fans to decimate each other in the pit.

One criticism of Cycles Of Light is that it’s a little on the short side – falling below of the half an hour mark by a bit – but this is meant to be punk rock after all, and the fact that the album is completely fat-free 27 minutes is hard to fault.

While the metallic-hardcore genre is slowly being filled up with a glut of mediocre bands, it’s nice to hear a group that sounds real and genuine, and if the fury, energy, power and brains shown on Cycles Of Lights is anything to go by, Everything Went Black have a very promising career ahead of them.

(released January 17, 2012 on Prosthetic Records)

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.