Doughnuts

Feel Me Bleed (Victory)
by Tim Creter

It has never been easy for me to understand why Doughnuts are considered hardcore. Their lofty compositions are not simple blasts of power with harsh vocals, but rather, melodic yet hard-edged songs built on a foundation of metal. But metal and hardcore have always revolved around one another, so it’s hard to call them one or the other. The hardcore present in Doughnuts’ music is not the typical super-fast-to-mosh-part-for-the-live-audience-two-minute-scream-your-balls-off-stage-dive shit. But it is the heaviness in their message and music that forms a perfect unity between emotion and power on their new album, Feel Me Bleed. Don’t let any references to this band being hardcore turn you away – this is an album full of hard-edged, emotional, heavy, modern, and original metal/hardcore. According to the band, the album is based on the concept of hatred as illusion, where your personal hatred really has no effect on anybody but yourself. The theme is well-illustrated by their guitar-heavy music and passionate, melodic vocals with disturbing, abstract lyrics. Doughnuts have far outdone their previous release, so if you liked that, you’ll love this.