HIS HERO IS GONE - 15 Counts Of Arson

Artist:  His Hero Is Gone
Album: Fifteen Counts Of Arson
Year:  1997
Genre:  Hardcore Punk / Metal

For a good period of time in the mid-90s, I was the head “indie” buyer at my record store.  Along with the power to decide what titles from metal, punk, alterative and other related genres the store would carry, it also gave me the opportunity to know the people at the independent distros we used to purchase from at the time.  Every two weeks I got to have a 1 to 2-hour phone call with the good people at Dutch East Trading, Caroline Records, Get Hip and others, which resulted in becoming phone friends with awesome people like Tracy from Dahlia Seed and so many others.  I even want to say Bert Queiroz of DC hardcore fame and Matt Harvey from Exhumed were in there somewhere too, but I also could be losing my mind. Through this process, I got to know them as they familiarized themselves with the type of store we were.  They were consistently pushing new music on me to obviously make sales, but they also suggested new things I wasn’t familiar with at the time.  It was also an incredible way to be introduced to new bands.  After we finished the call, a huge package of promotional items would always arrive within the week.  Seeing that giant bubble envelope arrive with 15-30 new CDs was like fucking Christmas to a record store employee.  Then, if you found something you liked, the search for the vinyl was on!  Modern day ordering can’t compare.  Now it is just a click of a box on a computer and it’s done.  No fun.  No discussion.  No promos.  Nothing.  The point of this babbling is that one of the promotional items I was sent happened to be Fifteen Counts Of Arson by His Hero Is Gone and I’ve been getting my head pummeled by this album ever since.

Previous to that glorious mail day, I’d never heard of His Hero Is Gone.  Being on Prank Records, I had a slight preconceived notion about what I was going to get hit with, but never did I expect the sonic bomb that was dropped on me.  A band that plays short, virulent blasts of hardcore with a sound blueprint built by Entombed?  Sign me the fuck up!  HHIG was a special band. Although the fusion of crusty punk and doom-ridden sludge is commonplace now, it definitely was not in 1997.  The 90s saw hardcore bands adopt much weightier and more distressing sounds.  Hardcore was no longer a “rah-rah” stepchild of punk and bands like Youth Of Today were in the rearview mirror for labels like Victory, New Age, Trustkill and Eulogy.  Just like the crossover scene in the 80s, hardcore was once again associated with metal, whether either fanbase liked it or not.  If it were not for the clothing and lyrics, bands like Ire, Unbroken, Cave In, Zao, Bloodlet and Vision Of Disorder could’ve easily fit in with even the most discerning metalheads.

His Hero Is Gone took everything an enormous step further as they ventured to make an unsettling, long, ugly album; in which they were very successful.  Why do I mention the length?  Not too many bands of this nature write 35-minute records.  I believe HHIG had the intention of beating every last breath out of the listener by the time the record hit the final groove.  At least that’s how I feel even when I listen to it now.  So much is packed into each of these songs, but it’s so overloaded with HM-2-sounding distortion and furious mood swings that the intricacies are easy to miss. There is melody happening deep down, and if you listen closely, you can hear where Tragedy came from later in their career.  It was original for its era and still holds up extremely well today against bands that have taken influence from His Hero and run with it.  Simply put, fans of hardcore punk, death metal, grindcore, crust, powerviolence and so on, if you don’t already own this album, you’ve been depriving yourself for too long.  Do yourself a favor and seek out the Tragedy catalog while you’re at it.   You won’t be disappointed.

Listen to "And We Burn" here.