Album Review: Biohazard - Divided We Fall
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
It’s taken Brooklyn Crossover legends, Biohazard, thirty-five years to make it to album number ten; the road to which has been anything but smooth at times, and down-right hostile at others. The further we moved away from 2012’s excellent Reborn in Defiance, itself seven years in the making, the more unlikely a new record seemed. Add to that the personnel upheavals following the 2008 reunion and the departure of OG bassist/ vocalist Evan Seinfeld in 2011, meaning Biohazard were reliant on guitarist Scott Roberts to fill the vacancy up to the second disbanding in 2016.
In October 2022 it was announced that Biohazard would be reforming with the line up that was responsible for the first three albums: Biohazard, Urban Discipline and the breakout State of the World Address. The handful of gigs became a full-on tour and it was evident to anyone who saw, the band was back, and a new record was surely only a matter of time.
Well, that time is now and the record is the (spoiler alert) frankly awesome Divided We Fall. It’s forty-minutes and eleven tracks of Biohazard doing precisely what you want them to be doing: blending hardcore punk and groove metal with a hip-hop street sensibility.
The time away has allowed the rage to build once more, and another State of the World address is needed. It’s hard-edged and fiery, the riffs are the stuff of legend, harkening back to the glory days of the band when they were young and full of indignation. Forsaken is built around a choppy guitar and a big breakdown, the bouncing pre-chorus and flailing strings charge with an unrelenting focus.
Tear Down the Walls comes with a big, brazen breakdown, I Will Overcome brims with defiance and an uncompromising attitude, while closing tune, Warriors is a call to arms, toying with chanted vocals, yet never being too far away from a killer guitar line.
Evan’s musical relationship with drummer Danny Schuler has resulted in some destructive rhythms in the past and that is repeated here. The explosive percussion on War Inside Me compliments Billy Graziadei’s unstoppable riffs on an album highlight; Fight to Be Free is slow and controlled, until it isn’t, when Bobby Hambel gets to shine and shred his strings as though his life depended on it.
Word to the Wise is the first time the hip-hop elements really come to the fore, the gang vocals from Evan and Billy compliment the skipping breakdown and rapid-fire soloing. S.I.T.F.O.A – or Straight in the Face of Adversity – leans much further into the urban style, underpinned by some heavy guitar, it’s Biohazard playing to their strengths.
Divided We Fall was produced, mixed and mastered by Matt Hyde, the man responsible for, among others Hatebreed and Slayer and, while the former can be heard colouring the likes of I Will Overcome, it’s the unmistakable vibe of Slayer that can be detected on three of the albums opening four tracks.
The antagonistically titled Fuck the System kicks things off with usual Biohazard aplomb, but there’s a familiar sound to Billy and Bobby’s guitars. Heavy and punishing, these could be Hanneman and King at their finest. Eyes on Six has an eerie horror movie beginning before dropping into some classic thrash chugs and an Araya-type bawl; whereas Death of Me has a similar slow and chunky latter-era Slayer style.
None of that is meant as a criticism, by the way, other than the tracks could possibly have been more evenly spread out so as not to overload the opening section. But Divided We Fall is a masterclass in the brutality and belligerence that makes for top quality Crossover. Biohazard blend hardcore, metal and an urban atmosphere, fuelled by the dissolution of the world as we know it, and an unwillingness to go gentle into that good night, to create one of the year’s finest records. Love it.
