Album Review: NYC Sucks Vol. 1

Don't be fooled by the title, this compilation anything but sucks. If you're curious as to what NYC Sucks is (and why it is called that in the first place), merely read under the album title. It is "the best of New York City's Metal Scene as Compiled by the Editors of Metalsucks." For those who don't know, Metalsucks is pretty much the premier source of metal news on the net, and is arguably the most successful blog garnered towards this type of music (but Mosh Rebellion kicks some ass too, *cough cough*), so it's nice to see the editors get together and put forth a compilation actually worth listening to. For some reason, almost every compilation set I have heard in recent history has sucked for one reason or another, but Metalsucks did a great job putting together arguably the best Metal compilation disc I have heard in all my days of listening to the heaviest, most brutal genre of music on this planet. And best of all, its free.

For one, there is a great deal of variety in this compilation. There's Mathcore (The Binary Code), Technical Death Metal (Pyrrhon), Progressive Black Metal (Castevet), and Doom Metal (Batillus), along with many more genres represented by the ten other bands. There is seriously something for every Metal fan in this compilation, and I have to say I was very pleased when I started listening to find that variety was just as commonplace as the quality of music, and with fourteen different bands it's gonna be awhile before this release gets boring.

Another thing I really like about NYC Sucks is how both bigger bands and smaller bands are represented. Made Out of Babies, who have nearly 700,000 plays on Last.fm have a track on this compilation which is followed by one by Tiger Flowers, who at the time of this writing have only 262 plays on Last.fm. The editors of Metalsucks weren't kidding around when they said they were compiling the best of New York metal scene, and it's great see quality bands represented no matter how large their fan base is. It seems like the editors just went out to shows, found the best live bands no matter how many people were in attendance, and signed them up for NYC Sucks, which is unendingly awesome.

So, the quality of these tracks is incredible. Each song is great in its own regard, and it's great to see smaller acts getting some recognition along with the big dogs. Plus with the number of different genres in this compilation, there's something for everybody. Normally I would give a great release like this four out of five stars, but c'mon, it's free. There's literally no reason you shouldn't get this if you are a fan of brutal music, which is why NYC Sucks gets a very deserving

5/5

This review can also be found on breakthrough review website, Critic Hammer.