For the Lions

For the Lions, released by E1 Entertainment on 5 May 2009, is an eighteen-song covers album. It is not an album of original material, but it holds a place of its own in the catalogue: a single record that shows what Hatebreed came out of. The selection straddles hardcore and metal. Slayer's "Ghosts of War", Metallica's "Escape", the Misfits' "Hatebreeders", Black Flag's "Thirsty & Miserable" and Sepultura's "Refuse / Resist" sit alongside a thick seam of New York hardcore — Agnostic Front, Sick Of It All, Cro-Mags. Eighteen is a lot for a record of this kind. Each song is short, and the treatment is consistent: keep the original's structure very nearly intact and replace its weight with Hatebreed's own. The choice is to connect through playing rather than to surprise through interpretation. Covers albums are often treated as a breather. This one worked as a preface to the self-titled record that arrived the following September. Naming your sources first and then putting your own name on the next album is a sequence with a point to it.