The Killer – Better Judged By Twelve Than Carried By Six

The Killer – Better Judged By Twelve Than Carried By Six / 2006 Organized Crime / http://www.thekillerhc.com / http://www.organizedcrimerecords.com / Reviewed 19 May 2006

The brand of hardcore that The Killer play is influenced by both earlier hardcore and metal acts. Thus, tracks like “Where Will You Go?” are tied to the eighties metal of acts like Megadeth, with repetitious guitars driving a rhythm far into listeners’ heads. The great thing about The Killer is that the music on “Better Judged By Twelve” was recorded over two years ago, and still sounds as fresh and as relevant as if it was recorded only days ago.

The band is confident and really exploits the production of this disc; the band is able to push the envelope in the sense that they do not let themselves get hemmed into a specific musical sound. This means that the vocals on songs like “The True Failure” are actually intelligible; the individual that produced the album actually knows how to keep the low end heavy while not distorting the high end. When the band shows their sludge influence during a song like “The Confession of An Escape Artist”, The Killer gains a little bit more respect. This is not the average hardcore band that has only been listening to Converge and Coalesce for a few years but rather a band that knows where they came from and what they wish to do with their influences. Even when the song is arranged in a simple way (“Vatican”), The Killer comes forth with an intensity that cannot be beat.

The band creates a number of environments with the songs on “Better Judged By Twelve” that allows them to approach the creative process in a number of ways. This is why the album has been re-released by Organized Crime Records and had an additional DVD thrown into the mix. The Killer were critically underestimated when they first came out, and this is the perfect time to come back out with this album and have the impact be equal to the talent that The Killer shows on this album. What is a nice thing about tracks like “Tell My Mom I Love Her” is that different arrangements can present themselves in the same song; the vocals are dominant during the early part of the track, but the guitars swell up at points threatening to swallow all other instruments. Brutish, nasty and short is what Hobbes described life as, and that description can also work for The Killer on “Better Judged By Twelve”.

Top Tracks: Pills, Where Will You

Rating: 6.4/10

[JMcQ]