HATE GALLERY

'Viva La Resistance' is the second album from Hate Gallery, a band formed from English, Swedish and Finnish musicians. Described in the press blurb as "an intense, hard driving, anthemic rock album", add to that description a punk slant that materialises through some basic chord riffage and slightly dissonant vocal delivery, along with an occasional layer of atmospheric keyboards in the mix, and it'll hone more accurate listening expectations. With Janne Jarvis penning all lyrics (which mainly pertain to an anti-establishment polemic), all music (apart from a handful he co-wrote with guitarist Rickard Lundell), and producing/co-mixing/co-engineering the album, 'Viva La Resistance' appears very much to be the British vocalist/bassist's baby and, ultimately, perhaps suffers from his creative autonomy. Most of the songs are fast-paced, up-tempo rockers apart from two slower tempo tracks ('The Becoming' and 'Love Shine On'), which makes for quite an engaging listen on a surface level, but there is also an underlying blandness and uninventive repetition of vocal/musical motifs within too many of the tracks. Sure, it's politically-fuelled punk metal with something to say so the repetition is perhaps there to hammer home a particular point but unfortunately at the expense of not enough compositional variance. That said, everything's competently executed and is fairly engaging for one or two listens all the way through but lacks any real depth to sustain interest and encourage return visits to the album. There are definite highlights during the near hour-long playing time, at least for me, such as 'Domination Soul' and 'Satellite', but these just serve to expose and emphasise the inadequacies of the other tracks. 'Viva La Resistance' is by no means a bad album and what are weaknesses for me will undoubtedly be strengths for other listeners who perhaps click more with the generic stylings of punk metal. As such though, my experience of Hate Gallery with their sophomore offering is that they fail to live up to the hype.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

North & South

Album

VIVA LA RESISTANCE

Review by Mark Holmes

RUNNING TIME:

54:00

RELEASE DATE:

9th Jan 2012

TRACK LISTING

1) Viva La Resistance
2) The Warning
3) Satellite
4) The Becoming
5) Security Forces
6) Rats
7) Frequency
8) Domination Soul
9) 2 Minute Hate
10) Love Shine On
11) Salvation

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Multi

"Most of the songs are fast-paced, up-tempo rockers...which makes for quite an engaging listen on a surface level, but there is also an underlying blandness and uninventive repetition of vocal/musical motifs within too many of the tracks."