Of all the many different sounds that anything related to the world of metal, rock, and punk have had their fair share of criticism from both inside and outside the scene, but the most scrutinized styles in the whole of metal and its contemporary styles has to be anything that has the word “core” attached to it. Be it deathcore, hardcore, metalcore, or whatever there will be some sneering at it just because. It’s been too long since I found myself enjoying a hardcore-sounding record that was even a little compelling, and it’s with DAO that I found a really nice refresher.

It’s not because I don’t like the “core” styles because I don’t frequent them as often as I’d like, it just feels as though there’s a lot of uncompelling repetition. There can be repetition and it still be good within a style with both metal and rock being perfect representations of that idea, but it somehow feels much more restricted with “core”. At first today, I sat down looking for some deathcore since I haven’t heard some goodness in there recently, but after some time I went into hardcore and it was DAO that impressed me the most. Don’t let that make you think that their upcoming debut of “Worthless” is the greatest thing that the realm of hardcore has ever produced, but rather it’s a substantial work that has plenty of depth in its voluminous noise that really goes for the throat and is meant to leave no survivors. It somehow sucks you right in as DAO is whipping up a constant firestorm that rarely lets up as the blaze burns away at your skin with such fervor that it’s hard not to get into the harsh rhythms that’s on constant display here. Across all the nine tracks of this relatively short run time of 22 minutes there isn’t a single thing that I’d ask DAO to change about “Worthless” as it’s gripping and downright destructive in a way that only hardcore can pull off, and given time I’m positive that DAO can easily master this style and thus come to dominate.

Like I said, this isn’t the greatest thing that I’ve heard from the wide world from hardcore and I feel that it’s partly due to my break from the sound as it was one I felt I needed to take so it’s after finally returning to it through this record that DAO has provided me an experience that I can really sink your teeth into. Every ounce of “Worthless” is meant to dominate devastate down to the last atom of our miserable existence, and it’s a fiery death that is all but thrilling to sit through.

“Worthless” releases on September 27th!

LISTEN to the single, “Failure”, on Bandcamp here or via YouTube below.

LIKE DAO on Facebook here.