The Concrete Confessional

The Concrete Confessional, released by Nuclear Blast on 13 May 2016, is Hatebreed's seventh album and their first for that label — the start of a relationship that continued through 2020 and into 2026. It opens on "A.D.", a song that stops short of ninety seconds, and the brevity is itself the statement. "Looking Down the Barrel of Today", "Seven Enemies" and "In the Walls" keep the first half moving at an unforgiving pace. Official video was made for several of these: music videos for "Looking Down the Barrel of Today" and "Something's Off", a visualizer for "A.D.", a lyric video for "Seven Enemies". No other record in the band's catalogue produced as many. Through the middle — "From Grace We've Fallen", "Us Against Us", "Remember When" — metal riff construction bites clearly into the hardcore directness. The handling of tempo across "Slaughtered in Their Dreams", "The Apex Within" and "Walking the Knife" shows a control of weight the early records did not have. Thirteen songs, closing on "Serve Your Masters". As the word concrete in the title suggests, it is built from specific language that refuses to retreat into abstraction, and from structures with everything superfluous cut away.