Album Review: Walls of Jericho – System Error: Humanity
Reviewed by Dan Phipps
It does not feel like it’s been ten years since Detroit metallic hardcore band Walls of Jericho last dropped new music but it is and it’s beginning to make me feel rather old. The band who gained their height of popularity in the UK during the Trustkill Records heyday in the early 2000’s have been in my opinion along with Terror the most consistent band from that particular crop of bands who blew up around that time and have maintained both consistent in their musical output and remain honest in the sound of the band. The bulk of bands from the early 2000’s who had records that came out via Trustkill really have not aged well, mainly because they in my opinion strayed from what they did best. Walls of Jericho were not one of those bands and every record right from the debut in 99 throughout their history has been an incredibly intense and energetic listen.
System Error: Humanity as alluded to is the bands first new material since 2016 it comes out in November and continues the band’s legacy of high energy aggressive hardcore. Opening with True Til’ Death this is a straight up tank of an album opening which leads off with a pounding drum beat, and is just riff after riff culminating in a great anthemic moshy chorus which I can imagine will fit right into the bands live shows going forward. The energy of the album is a continuous theme and with this being a long record by Hardcore standards the fifteen songs in total in which numerous which have a run time in excess of three minutes are packed full of that signature hostile energy which is certainly helped by Candace Buckingham and her ferocious lyrical attack. If I had to be picky my only real issue I find is that the production is a bit too nice and would have really benefitted from a bit of a rougher sound.
The big win on a personal level for this record and what I find the most enjoyable aspect is even with Walls of Jericho doing what they do for so long they do not abandon their initial sound, there is definitely a progress in the bands song writing but this record gives you new material that still sounds like the band’s output from ttwenty plus years ago but without it being a rehashed copy. It wasn’t broken so there was no point fixing it; the band just continued to create solid material.
System Error: Humanity is a solid listen. It’s Walls Of Jericho doing what they do, and still having it come across as honest and not a veteran band going through the motions and just releasing something for the sake of it. If, like me, your gateway into underground hardcore involved a big portion of bands who would be packed onto a Hellfest line up every year then this will take you straight back.
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