Hardcore Superstar - HCSS

Published April 11 2015

*=Staff's pick	Don't Mean Shit Party Till I'm Gone* The Cemetery Off With Their Heads Fly* The Ocean Touch The Sky Growing Old Glue Messed Up For Sure

Genre	Sleaze rock/Hard rock	Jocke Berg	Vocals
Tracks	10	Vic Zino	Guitar
Running time	45 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	GAIN/Sony Music	Martin Sandvik	Bass
Release	April 22, 2015	Adde Andreasson	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboard
Producer	Hardcore Superstar
Similar artists	---

Swedish rockers Hardcore Superstar have said that they have been trying to go back in time, to the beginning of their career, to find inspiration and to come out fresh again, and what's really strange is that they actually are unquestionably successful on this matter. Usually these statements are just things that bands tend to say in order to make an attempt to bring back some mystique and interest to the band, but in this case it's definitely no bullshit.

Before this outfit released their eponymous black effort in 2005, they were in fact pretty uninteresting most of the time and often even quite bad. Hence, I really can't see the purpose of making such a bold move as this, which I think even started a little on the band's last album C'mon Take On Me, besides maybe the possibility of them believing that their latest material slowly has deteriorated or that they feel that they've hit a dead end with this type of music.

With this return closer to earlier times and by taking different influences and elements of other types of music to the table again, I miss a lot of those accurate party moments that really have contributed to this band's trademark during the last decade. The fully charged attitude is more or less gone with the wind and even if the outcome feels authentic, it's indeed not as exciting and fun to listen to this record in comparison to a few of its predecessors.

The songs come out with no real intensity overall and much of the presented material is too weak to be efficient and the band will certainly get a hard time to maintain its position as a band for festivities if they decide to continue this path in the future. After listening to this record at least 20 times, I must admit that I found some good parts, but sadly those things chiefly stick to the choruses, while a major share of the rest of the songs isn't capable to grab me.

I sincerely don't believe that the band's ordinary fans, or potentially new fans as well, will have the same patience as I have, and therefore this whole idea is incredibly hard to understand and I can't hand out more than 4 chalices when everything has been taken into consideration.

See also review of: C'mon Take On Me , Hardcore Superstar
See also: interview with Jocke Berg

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	7	5	6	4

Summary
4 chalices of 10 - Tobbe