Threat – Soundtrack – Review

va-threat-soundtrack200Threat

Soundtrack (Halo8/DHR)
by Scott Hefflon

If you’re too young to remember Atari Teenage Riot‘s headache-inducing style (called digital hardcore, and released on ATR’s Digital Hardcore Recordings) from the mid-’90s (mainstreamed by Happy Walter’s Spawn soundtrack, which paired ATR and Slayer, an obvious match all but ATR seemed to see, what with “Into the Death” sounding similar to “Angel of Death”), here’s yer crash course. It takes an underground movie like Threat to have the courage to bring metalcore and digital hardcore together, and show each the power of the other.

Fans of Bleeding Through, Most Precious Blood, Eighteen Vision, Terror, and Eyes Like Knives are about to get their minds blown by Atari Teenage Riot, Alec Empire (ATR frontman), Panic DHH, Ec8or, and the jungly Queque. Uh, but not the other way around. As I noted a decade ago, brilliant electronics can incorporate angry music (I’d call it metal, but this is mostly hardcore and metalcore), but angry music can almost never include electronics beyond a third grade level. Sad but true. (Not an absolute, of course, but that’s why the exceptions are so exciting.)

Threat‘s a great movie. A day-in-the-life concept most of us can relate with, and the acting is surprisingly good for an indie flick. The decision to pair up digital hardcore and metalcore for the soundtrack is just another sign of making great art, not another piece of commercial shit with a trendy soundtrack with mop-top “punks,” or “metal” bands for a cookie-cutter PG-13 horror movie.

Oh, far more mind-blowing than this soundtrack is the “mash up” (electro terrorists shred and rebuild a metal tune) Music That Inspired the Movie. While metal and metalcore and hardcore fans may think they’re tough, Music That Inspired the Movie will surely send most of them crying home to momma. No hyperbole needed. Ya don’t realize how traditional and linear hardcore is until it’s shredded, rebuilt, and thrust in your face with the force of a meth-freak prisoner shredding your virgin asshole.
(www.halo8.tv)