Let me say that I have been a Broken Hope fan since the early 2000's so I was super pumped when they announced a reunion tour, though I was skeptical of how they would sound without their original singer, who tragically died many years ago. The live show delivered, both in support of Obituary and at MDF 2013. Thankfully, these performances seem to have brought a whole bunch of new fans to the band. If you like stuff from the early 2nd wave of American Death Metal, such as Immolation, old Cannibal Corpse, old Suffocation, etc then you NEED to check out Broken Hope.
I haven't yet decided where the new album falls in relation to the other releases, one listen isn't enough. I will say that "Swamped In Gore" and "Bowels of Repugnance" are quite hard to top for me so this album will probably fall somewhere after them. Don't let that discourage you from listening to the new album though, it truly is brutal and has some disgusting lyrics (as always) which might be some of their best!
As for the above show, I saw the tour at the Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan, at great venue with sloping floor so General Admission people can see pretty much anywhere. There are also seats for those who want them. Obituary DEMOLISHED live, they played a long, long set and the crowd rewarded them by going appropriately bananas. Decrepit Birth was a little to 'technical' with way too many blast beats for me (meaning that the notes to brutality ratio was unbalanced in favor of the notes), Jungle Rot was great and had a solid set (as always, I've seen them at least 3x) though their sound was not as good this show (I blame the sound guy). Encrust was interesting, sounding like Death Metal and Crust as their name implies but not combining and of the best elements of either to me so they also fell short of amazing me. I will say all the bands put on an energetic show, I just didn't get into Decrepit Birth or Encrust.
http://www.brokenhope.com/HOME.html
*Review and photo copyright The Samnambulist, 2013*
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