REVIEW: 'Hell Is...' by Diztort

Debut 12" EP by California's Diztort. Advanced Perspective Records number 1.

Admittedly this release flew well under my radar, I wouldn’t of been able to hear this if I wasn’t put onto it by a good friend of mine. To set the scene on how I heard this, I was hanging out with my friends at band practise and my boy popped this on through the speakers saying “Jack you’re gonna love this, it’s the most ignorant shit I’ve heard all year”. He was almost correct.

Not the best way to start a review, but lets get to my opinions on this record, because that’s what you are here to read.

Diztort who hail from Huntington Beach in California, put out one of the most overlooked records of the past couple of months on the 28th August 2018, which somewhat justifies why this review is now 12 days after it’s release (could of totally used “had a couple of weeks to really sink my teeth into this record”, but I’m not a poser). Coming out through Advanced Perspective Records, this is the follow up to their demo, which released 13 months prior.

To boil down the sound of Diztort is very easy, its got Power Trip-esque thrash vibes but done in a crossover style. This is by no means to say that Diztort are a crossover thrash band, this is straight up ignorant crossover inspired hardcore. If you’re a fan of bands like Detain/Never Ending Game/Three Knee Deep/Freedom then this is going to be right up your street.

The 5 track begins with Survival. The song itself starts with a sample from a 50’s news broadcast before launching into a fast and thrashy intro, which then later breaks into a stompy riff which is guaranteed to get you grimacing at how hard it is. The sonic scape created here through it’s 90’s style production, combined with the simple yet effective songwriting style gives us a purely ignorant opening track. The song itself has many crossover elements, but can be boiled down to jumping between thrashy sections and stompy slower parts. There is nothing spectacular or new going on here, this is just good ignorant hardcore.

The second track, Hell is… starts much the same as the first, jumping from a thrash style intro into another stomping riff. At the 0:33 mark, the song opens up to give much more headroom which creates a darker overall sound, the vocals then come through to start to tie the song together. Personally I am not a fan of the vocal style on this record, it sounds too unrefined and unpractised but I understand that this may be a stylistic choice by the band. At the 1:20 mark the song kicks back into thrashy style riffing, this then repeats for the rest of the song cycling in the early part where the song opens up again to give more headroom. As I previously mentioned the song writing is simple yet effective, but this is not to say that this approach is not without flaws. The length of the song feels too long, because there is not enough diversity in the way the song is constructed, it makes for good background listening, but when trying to engage with the song you may find yourself getting a little fatigued. One positive though, is the ending is exceptionally hard, and will make you want to have a little shadowboxing session.

Coming in third on the track listing is The Fate Pt.II. I genuinely feel as though I am going to be repeating a lot of my words in this review. Almost predictably the song bounced between thrash inspired sections and stomp riffs. Thankfully this song only clocks in at 2:13 running time and has some more classic hardcore inspired tropes and a guitar solo, which makes for some more interesting listening yet still does not bring anything new to the table, it is very much the same song as the two previous tracks.

Forced Reality then comes in at fourth on this record, starting with funding drums and a lovely clanky bass tone with rung out guitars in the background. This seems to much better constructed than the other songs on this record, it feels as if more thought has gone into the writing process. This is evidenced by dynamics shifting in the audible scape of the song. Diztort clearly have thought about what will get kids to mosh, then made it. This is arguably my most preferred song on the record, just because it feels like a properly written song. At the 1:44 mark we get an extremely well placed lead guitar section which starts to give the song some some more diversity. As I stated before, this is probably the standout track on this record.

The record closes with Time Without Becoming, a song which has a menacing sound to bring us up to the 0:33 mark before we are met with much of the same tropes found all over the rest of the record. This is not to say this makes it bad song as it’s well recorded and produced and it is written in the same style as the rest of the record, it just doesn’t bring anything new and therefore there really is very little to say about it.

To give my final thoughts on this record, I was extremely critical when writing this review because I needed to convey exactly what I was hearing. I sat down and listened to this record 3 times whilst writing this review after having listened to it for a week or so before writing this. I cannot stress enough that this isn’t a bad record, its well produced and is coherent. It encapsulates the USA crossover sound very well and it mixes it with more classic hardcore tropes. But, this record is a very long 15 minutes to get through, it is very similar throughout and sometimes it can feel like you are listening to the same song over and over again.

I do like this record, but it’s background listening for me, it’s not a record that I can stick on and vibe, it’s not something I can listen to on a commute. This record is made for being in the back of conversations and moshing to.

If you like ignorant crossover hardcore, then you will like this. Just be extremely aware that this brings nothing new and can be fatiguing to get through, if you wan’t something to love after a first listen then this is not it.

Hell is… good, but that’s about it.

By Jack Beale-Burchell