Melissa Howard
Published: February 22, 2006
In a society where hardcore and metal music has been watered down and filtered to a pulp, your conventional parents could probably tell you exactly what a blast beat is, and “hard” music is defined by the latest Linkin Park ballad, Uphill Battle brings new strength to the hardcore genre with their release “Blurred.” Introduced to the shelves in late October of 2005, this compilation of rare and previously unreleased tracks reminds fans of the crunchy breakdowns and harmonious melodies found in earlier releases.
This album is a collection of tracks that were recorded from 1999-2004, but never made it onto either their full-length album named “Wreck of Nerves,” or their self-titled debut. This makes for the beginning of the album to be more reminiscent of their early release and the ending tracks to be more like their full-length album.
Relapse Records, one of the most renowned metal record labels, produced the last two of Uphill Battle’s albums, and re-printed their debut. This is a huge feat, considering that many bands in this genre work their way up through self-production, and most can only dream of being represented by this label.
The record’s first track, “Means to an End,” gives the listener a glimpse of what will be heard throughout the 16 bone-breaking tracks on this record: loud, unadulterated guitar riffs blended with slower harmonies. After hearing this track, even the most traditional of music-listeners would have to concede that Uphill Battle knows how to mix the hard and slow parts of a song together, when they aren’t blasting out complexities that are sometimes hard to distinguish between.
Uphill Battle got its start in California in 1999, and originally formed under the name Crawlspace, which coincidentally is the title of the 12th track on this album. Sadly enough, the release of “Blurred” came with the demise of the band in late 2005. Uphill Battle accomplished a lot for a full run of only six years, including being signed to a major record label and having three well produced albums, which is more than a lot of bands ever accomplish.