Hardcore from Portland.

Our take: Alienator is a new hardcore band from Portland springing from the same well as Suck Lords and Reek Minds. This won’t surprise you if you’re familiar with those bands, but this tape is a total scorcher. Stylistically, Alienator lives at the intersection of fast, Discharge-inspired hardcore and thrash metal, with former’s density and ferocity and the latter’s technicality. They sound kind of like Within the Prophecy-era Sacrilege or Forward Into Battle-era English Dogs, but at Shitlickers speed and with a level of meanness that’ll remind you of Siege or YDI. It’s brutal shit, to where it’s easy to get lost in the intensity and miss how fast and technical the playing is. I’m generally wary of breakdowns, but Alienator are masters of the art, and that holds true whether they’re doing a pretty traditional-sounding thrash metal mosh part (as in “You Wish”) or one of their sludgier breakdowns, like in the crushing opening track, “Born to Die,” whose mosh part has a Sabbathian swing that brings to mind Corrosion of Conformity’s classic Eye for an Eye. Those C.O.C. vibes might cause some people to put Alienator in the same bucket as Tower 7 (admittedly, a pretty good bucket to be in), but Alienator’s speed and viciousness place them in a league of their own.