Review: Contrast of Sin - Summer Promo

Okay so when it comes to hardcore/metalcore, Delaware has been popping off lately. I don’t know whether it was always this good over there and Year of the Knife just woke everyone up or if the locals were inspired by the band’s success and rejuvenated the scene, but either way there are a ton of great new bands coming out of the state. In addition to the previously mentioned Year of the Knife, Delaware has birthed several notable young acts like Foreign Hands, Simulakra, and the subject of this review: the Delaware/New Jersey metalcore outfit Contrast of Sin. This 3-track promo is the band’s first release, up on Bandcamp and all streaming services. There was also a tape release of the promo, limited to 40 copies, sold by Arduous Path Records. I snagged my own tape and as of this posting, there are still a few more up for sale, so grab one if you're interested.

My personal cassette copy.

CoS first came to my attention via hardcore Twitter, where just about everyone in Year of the Knife, Rain of Salvation, and Simulakra was screaming at their followers to listen to the band. After spinning this promo, I understand why. This shit rips. Contrast of Sin has a very thick, metallic, and dissonant sound, not unlike that of Holy Terror bands. This shouldn’t be surprising considering their name was almost word for word ripped straight from an Integrity album. The Integrity influence is obvious in the vocals, which are highly reminiscent of Dwid’s howls while sounding a bit more raw and intense. The chaotic, frantic vocals also remind me of the raspy yet powerful delivery of Tyler Mullin from Year of the Knife. The songs, for the most part, are mid-tempo barrages of breakdowns, though the band will pick up the pace for brief periods and serve up some thrashy passages, adding a bit of variety to their sound. The band also utilizes the dark metalcore convention of using guitar feedback in an atmospheric manner, which works pretty well and doesn’t sound forced. I was pleasantly surprised by how prominent the bass was in the mix. It’s audible for every song and sounds great while not taking attention away from anything else. In fact, the production as a whole is really good for a promo. The band was able to find a great balance between rawness and clarity where the recording gives off a cold, dark vibe while still sounding good and packing a punch. The drums also sound punchy and intense as the drummer performs tempo changes with ease and pounds away during the many breakdowns. I don't have any complaints, everything about their sound just comes together extremely well and I'm glad I discovered these guys so early.

This is a seriously good first release from a new artist I'm genuinely excited about. Contrast of Sin have the potential to be a heavy hitter in the East Coast hardcore scene after a few years, so get on this and support the guys. They just played their first set at the This Is Hardcore 2019 preshow last month and have said more shows are on the way. I'm definitely seeing them whenever they make it to Connecticut.

FFO: Integrity, Year of the Knife, Holy Terror Bands.

My Late Start at Live Music

I started listening to metal in 2011 and hardcore in 2012. Despite this, I only started going out to metal and hardcore shows this year, at age 21. My first concert was the New Haven date of Hatebreed's 25th anniversary tour in April, of which I posted a small review on this blog and Metal Amino. Most people attend their first as a teenager, but I had some barriers I had to overcome. As I have mentioned in a prior post, I'm autistic. For me and most others, symptoms include social awkwardness, social anxiety and heightened sensitivity to stimuli. This made me very apprehensive toward going to live shows, since I would be around a ton of people I didn't know and exposed to very loud music. God knows what would have happened if I couldn't handle it. Previously, I had attempted to make plans to see Slayer, one of my favorite bands, twice, once in 2014 and once on their farewell tour in 2018. Both attempts fell through and after the 2018 instance, I promised myself to not let this happen to me again when I could easily see a band I loved. That's why when I saw the lineup of Hatebreed, Obituary, Terror, Cro-Mags, and Fit For An Autopsy coming to New Haven in April 2019, I told myself I was going and asked my sister to get me high fidelity earplugs for Christmas. 

I went with one of my best friends on the day of the show to College Street Music Hall knowing that I was taking a huge risk, but after so many years of wondering, I didn't care. I needed to know if this was something I could do. At that show, my friend and I sat down at our seats and eventually Fit For An Autopsy took the stage and started playing the intro to "Hydra". My heart was racing. Eight years of waiting was about to come to an end and I would finally hear live heavy music for the first time. The moment when the band played the opening breakdown of "Hydra" was a moment that changed my life. With my earplugs firmly in my ear canals, I realized I was able to do it. I was listening to some of the heaviest breakdowns in deathcore played right in front of me and I wasn't overwhelmed. When the other bands came on, I was still fine. Even when Obituary were onstage playing extremely fucking loudly and giving my non-earplug wearing friend tinnitus, I still had absolutely no issues. I felt so many emotions throughout that night: delighted that I finally knew I could see bands live, anger at myself for not having the courage to attempt to go as a teen, relief that I didn't wait any longer to start going out. The show was around five hours long and every band was awesome. I left the venue that night with a whole lot of newfound confidence and no hearing loss.

I'm so thankful I finally went out and did it, but I can't help but also be filled with regret as there are so many bands I love that I will never see because of how timid I was. I'll never see Black Sabbath. I'll never see Motorhead. I'll never see Expire. I'll never see Backtrack. I'll never see The Dillinger Escape Plan. Bar some miracle I'll probably never see Slayer. I'll never be able to get over missing out on some of these bands. On the bright side, that realization has pushed me to be more active and consistent in going to shows. Once my semester ended, I started going to a lot of local hardcore shows and so far, I have seen a number of bands that I have been a fan of for a long time (thanks to the promoter Seventh Circle booking awesome out of state bands) and made a few friends in the scene. I can't wait to spend my final year of college going to shows and having fun, especially since now my time management is much better than in years past. To my fellow autistic music fans I have this to say: Try it at least once. Please. Especially if you're younger than me. I don't want you to have the regrets I have. Get good earplugs, go with a friend or family member, and have an emergency plan in case the music is too much. Even if it's a disaster, at least you won't spend years wondering what could have been.

Where Am I?

If you stumbled on this blog and are wondering what it is exactly, I created this to be an outlet for whatever I wanted to write. It'll be nice to have a place to write a post about whatever I want.

The name "Neuroshock" was chosen because I am on the autism spectrum and wanted a name that reflected neurology in some way yet also sounded cool. I originally saw this name in the comments of a YouTube video, saying that "Neuroshock" would have been a much more suitable name for the 2017 video game Prey, which had nothing to do with the 2006 game of the same name and greatly resembled 0451 games like System Shock and Bioshock.

The main topic for this blog will probably be music, things like reviews, showing off stuff in my collection, talking about bands and albums super important to me, stuff like that. After having an entire week's worth of work deleted off of Metal Amino a few months ago for no reason, I thought about posting things elsewhere as well. I also see myself writing about video games, life with autism, and writing more general rants too. Other topics may also come up in time. I also plan to post pieces I have written on different platforms in the past to this blog in an effort to have everything I have worked on archived in one place. If I find something I worked on years ago that isn't super embarrassing, I'll put it up here. I've had an internet presence for a very long time, so who knows what I'll find as I look into my past? I've been mulling the idea of starting a blog for years now. Today, I decided to pull the trigger. I don't know how active I will be, but I at least want to have this here. This is for me more than anything else, but if you find something enjoyable, informative, or discover something new because of anything I post on here, that's awesome. As a disclaimer: everything posted before this is archived from another source, and each post's origin will be stated in an editor's note. Thanks for reading and enjoy the blog.