Hatebreed

Hatebreed, released by E1 Music on 29 September 2009, is the band's self-titled fifth album. It came immediately after the covers record For the Lions that May — the second half of a year in which they put out two albums. Putting the band's own name on a record mid-career is a way of restating what that name refers to. As titles like "Become The Fuse", "Not My Master" and "In Ashes They Shall Reap" indicate, the subject narrows to the refusal of submission and to recovery under one's own power, and the music is built by the shortest route, with the decoration stripped out. Through the middle, "Hands Of A Dying Man", "Everyone Bleeds Now" and "No Halos For The Heartless" tighten the record with slower, heavier writing. "Every Lasting Scar" and "As Damaged As Me" state this band's particular position plainly: carry the damage forward rather than pretend it away. It closes on "Merciless Tide" and "Pollution Of The Soul", fourteen songs in all. A deluxe limited edition adds "Escape (New Diehard Edit)" and two live recordings from 2009.