Deathstar’s debut album, The Triumph, was originally released in 2004 by Life Sentence Records. Due to the album’s popularity, it has been out of print for a few years and the band’s current label, Facedown Records, decided to help the fans out by re-releasing it – topped off with a re-mixed and re-mastered sound. The album also features new artwork by label staple Dave Quiggle and features the opposite perspective of the artwork used for Deathstar’s second album: We Are The Threat. (Instead of seeing the back of a gang of shady bravados as on …Threat, we see their dark faceless facades for Triumph). Deathstar’s instant success and loyal fan following can be attributed to the pure harsh hardcore the seven-piece band so accurately produced on their debut. The hardcore genre is plagued with splintering influencing factions of metal, dirty rock, and screamo that threaten to dilute the scene. Deathstar viciously crushed any skepticism that intense heavy-hitting songs pumped by messages of straight-edge unity and Christian values are dead. It is probably not a coincidence that the seventh track, “Suffocate Faster,” shares the same name as another hardcore purist band with whom Deathstar later went on to split an EP with. An old-school hardcore void and hunger may have once existed, but the resurgence and satisfaction started here.
Features

Love and Death and Resurrection
After an eight year hiatus, Love and Death return with 'Perfectly Preserved,' an eclectic and personal release for nu-metal icon and frontman Brian 'Head' Welch. Still at the heart of it all, the man with the dreads details his life in the spotlight after returning to Korn, the launch of a holistic recovery center, and his spearheading of an autobiographical documentary. As fresh as he's ever been at 50 years old, he's still got more to give.
Full Feature More from Love and Death
Droning On
The world came to a halt in 2020, but London-based Drones trudged on, giving a voice to the hurt that circulates with (or without) a pandemic: "You shouldn’t underestimate the power of writing things down or literally speaking them out loud, which I’m learning. I’m glad I made these songs, no matter how personal they are."
Full Feature More from Drones
The Space for Rebirth
On Age of the Abstract's new EP, 'Rebirth,' the duo explores what a new sound looks like apart from the day-job in Canidria. Here, contributing writer Andrew Voigt talks with Julio Arias about influence, vision, and how writing in the wake of his father's death propelled the band forward.
By Andrew Voigt
Full Feature More from Age of the Abstract
The Top 25 Albums of 2020
When the going gets tough, artists create art. Despite a world reckoning outside our quarantined doors, musicians relentlessly created new music giving birth to genre-defining releases and, despite a year spent indoors, a marked 2020 full of passion and fervor. Here are our Top 25 albums of 2020.
By David Stagg
Full Feature More from HM MagazineMusic Reviews
-
Vols. 6 and 7
United We SkateReview by Nao Lewandowski
-
Influence
Everything in Slow MotionReview by Nao Lewandowski