Strike Anywhere
Change Is a Sound

THE REVIEW

It is well known that it is easier to talk about what we like the most, rather than having to commit and dedicate time to narrate something that perhaps hasn't stayed in our hearts or to which we don't have special memories attached.

And if it's true that Strike Anywhere have never been at the top of my listening list among the melodic hardcore bands around, it is still worth briefly narrating their personal story.

Originating from Richmond, Virginia, they formed in 1999 after the singer Thomas Barnett dissolved his previous punk project Inquisition.
They debuted with the EP "Audience of One" and subsequently released their first album "Change is a Sound" in 2001 on the Jade Tree label. Among the stories told in the lyrics are considerations of women's rights and police abuses.

Considered by many as their best record, their debut stands out from the classic offerings from Epitaph and Burning Hearts that dominated the nineties and served as soundtracks for a skateboarding adventure along the seafront under the summer sun.
The peculiarity of this album, both a curse and a blessing, are the countless tempo changes, which willingly disrupt the structures of individual songs, as well as an occasionally emotional atmosphere that also emerges from Barnett's often shouted vocals ("Timebomb Generation" and "Laughter in a Police State") with a couple of more light-hearted episodes bringing everything back to normal.
In some ways, the band they were most comparable to at the time, even from a strictly temporal point of view, are Rise Against from their first two albums under Fat Wreck.

It can be said that it is a work that attempts to shuffle the deck, where the classic influences of the genre are reworked in light of the old-school hardcore tradition in the right mix between old and new school.
It's an album that could therefore make happy both those who listen to melodic hardcore and those looking for a proposal that partly departs from the classic West Coast trend.

Subsequently, three more albums will follow, the last of which dates back to 2009, where some of that urgency from the debut will be lost. Meanwhile, a new album is currently in the works which should break the silence and be released in 2017.