It is no surprise that most hardcore bands possess a categorically bleak and cynical outlook of the world we live in, but only Pittsburgh's
Unreal City have seen fit to express this deep sense of ennui shared by illuminated bros with the words
Ephemeral Subsistence -- which is the name of their debut album through Double or Nothing Records. And it doesn't end there, as song titles like "Coiled Destiny," "Synthesis of Paranoia," and "Altus Proditio" (legal speak for high treason, apparently) suggest a certain kinship between
Unreal City and the original punk professors,
Bad Religion, whose vocabulary would regularly send fans scrambling for their dictionaries. And yet
Unreal City's music to back up these lyrics is much darker than that of the pop-inflected California legends, including somber doom riffs ("Moral Sermons"), haunting melodic intros ("War in Heaven"), crossover thrash kick-drums ("Slipping into Perversion"), and even the odd guitar solo or two ("Fabricated," "Beyond Reality," etc.). The album may therefore alienate some of the stricter hardcore purists with its rather versatile sonic tableau, but should make up for this by attracting numerous tourists from the heavy metal end of the underground music spectrum. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia