Review: Aiden - Some Kind of Hate

 These days in the world of rock music, the act of releasing two albums in same year is a rare thing and these days can be an act that is viewed on with heaps of cynicism. Maybe it's down to the witnessing of major pop artists having a yearly album released as a means to ensure the remain relevant and rich in the everchanging spectrum of what is popular, meaning that rock fans can be assured that a two to four year gap between their favourite bands releasing an album will ensure that their next release will have a lot of hard work and focus put into it. Sure things don't always work out that way but the fact that people will still come back to a band even after being away for so long shows a sense of everlasting devotion proving rock bands to be muh more timeless. It's why there's a lesser sense of nostalgia as you would find in pop music when radios play hit singles from 1998, asking people if they "remember this one?" It's because much rock music that has existed througout its rich history still tands as strong today as it ever has.

Anyway, now that I've lived by the name of this blog, lt's move on with the review, as Seattle horror punk quartet Aiden have released their sixth album Some Kind of Hate just seven months after the brilliant Disguises. On listening I can't really tell if it justifies my previous rambling or proves I wrong.
 I mean, Some Kind of Hate is by no means a bad album at all. This is an album that's clearly made with a fiery passion to be seen as something that is definitive of Aiden. The punk riffs in There Will Be Blood and Freedom From Religion come thick and fast and carry with them a characteristic sense of hopelessness and doom, even though the rapid hardcore sound is far from any kind of doom metal styling, which fits their horror influence effectively, plus the epicly hooky Deactivate carries a spirit of fun in it's bouncy strucure. It also features a spoken sample from Trainspotting, so it shows Aiden have a great understanding of things that are totally bleak. This gives Some Kind of Hate the obvious sign of strength that is clearly prominent.
 If there were any weaknesses in the album, it's probably in the two covers featured. It's not that they do badly with them. They just don't make them truly unique, so I can only really compare them to their originals, which are ultimately better. Their take on Misfits' London Dungeons is ferocious enough, but doesn't have the same chilling atmosphere that Glenn Danzig managed to create on the original. The cover of Joy Division's Transmission also feels weak in comparison to the original as well, plus frontman Wil Francis sound like he's trying to impersonate Ian Curtis at various points. It gets a little awkward at times.
 But on the whole, Some Kind of Hate is a pretty strong horror punk collection. If Disguises was just a collection for the more fun gory type of horror films, Some Kind of Hate is the collection of more gripping edge-of-your seat horror thrill inspired songs.

Aiden's Some Kind of Hate is out now via Victory Records.