### The Suicide Kings: Menticide

#### 18/04/11 || Khlysty

Whadda fuck is a bloody “menticide”? The word processor thesaurus can’t tell me fuck all, so I’m gonna suppose that it’s a created word from the root “mental” and that it’s supposed to mean “killing one’s mentality”. Or something. I shouldn’t care. Really. I fucking shouldn’t.

Anyway, back to the work at hand. The Suicide Kings are presented by their label as “metalcore/nu-metal, punk/hardcore”. Now, said label’s doing the band a great disservice by tagging them as metalcore/nu-metal. I hadn’t even heard of them before taking up the chore of reviewing them, so I know shit-all about their previous records –if there are any. No matter, though. What I hear on “Menticide” is a beefed-up version of classic hardcore, in the vein of my beloved Social Distortion and their ilk. No metalcore. No nu-metal. No nothing. Just pure hardcore.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, besides being a twerp, your ignorance forces me to expand this review: okay, then, the music played by The Suicide Kings is a manly, catchy, fast-but-not-on-warp-speed take on hardcore. The riffs are simple and hook-y, the production is meat-and-potatoes workmanlike, the vocals are more spat out than sang and there’s a lot of gang-shouted choruses. Plus, some workable leads a la Supersuckers. And other hardcore-punk stuff that you should know about, what with you being a civilized person and whatnot.

No song even reaches the four-minute mark and if one doesn’t pay attention, the tracks might seem interchangeable, which they actually aren’t, even though there’s little variation of speed or song-writing approach. The guitars are pretty busy, what with playing all these barre chords in such speedy manner, the bass is audible and the drummer does his best to keep the fast doop-chick-doop-chick backbeat as interesting as possible. Look, this ain’t no nuclear physics or chaos math: this is hardcore in the most classic sense of the word. If you know hardcore and you like it, you’re gonna like “Menticide”. If not, this is no record for you. Me, I like hardcore and I like The Suicide Kings approach to it, so I’ll grant “Menticide” with a really high…

- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: KB Records
- Website: www.thesuicidekings.de
- Band
- Rüdiger: vocals
- Tober: guitar
- Chris: bass
- Markus: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. 2nd-class citizen boys
- 02. Carry my guilt
- 03. Not with us
- 04. Major moments
- 05. Life of Nancy
- 06. The flag
- 07. Walk alone
- 08. Crucify the saints
- 09. Killing glance
- 10. Menticide