Lock & Key – ‘Peaceless’ [Review]
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When it comes to blistering, brutal, and bruising hardcore, Lock & Key have what it takes to get you in the mood for a hectic circle pit, no matter the time of day. Peaceless is one hell of a breathless trip through…well…hell. It’s not the most nicey-nicey album in the world, put it that way.
Peaceless ticks all the batshit-insane-hardcore boxes: punishing riffs, barbaric beatdowns, throat-ripping screams, and enough melodic content to keep things from becoming too bleak. If that’s what you look for in a band, Lock & Key are a band you need to know – and make no mistake, these guys are sick musicians. But personally, it’s hard to listen to Peaceless and get massively hyped up, because the honest truth is, there are countless bands in the hardcore scene doing exactly the same thing.
The problem with bands who don’t stand out from the crowd is that they fall prey to the worst kind of thinking: The question of Where do these guys fit in? The ideal answer is: In a unique niche of their own, dividing opinion, winning die-hard fans and giving the finger to everyone else, and forging their own path. But in Lock & Key’s case, it’s too easy to lump them in with the rest of the generic hardcore crowd. With bands like Killswitch Engage continuing to pump out top-drawer metallic hardcore on a global scale, and acts like Palm Reader, Blood Youth, and Max Raptor cutting swathes through the underground on the back of individualistic, cookie-cutter-melting personality, the message is clear to everyone else in the scene: you’re either shattering boundaries and moving things forward, or you’re remaining stuck in what’s come before – and that way lies stagnation.
Again, die-hard hardcore fans will absolutely adore Peaceless. And fair play to them – it sounds fucking massive. It also needs to be said again that Lock & Key are sick musicians, masters of the established metallic hardcore template who very obviously possess the skills required to turn themselves into Big Names. But the album that makes their name is still ahead of them.
You can compete with anger. You can compete with intensity. You can compete with riffs, beats, speed, technique, and brutality. But you cannot – can not – compete with originality.
TMMP RATING: 80%
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