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Night Fever

Dead End

Written by: PP on 28/01/2024 21:44:31

Ten years separated from their previous album "Vendetta", Denmark's arguably tightest and most relentless hardcore punk band Night Fever is back with their third album, "Dead End". It's a record that plays with reckless abandon, characterized by feverish shredding and heavy metal-style technical soloing while vocalist Salomon yells and barks his way throughout. It's also one that seeks to answer the question of whether there's more to Night Fever than just incredibly tight, hardcore-laced punk played and yelled at breakneck speed, which has been my main gripe with them in the past.

But first, some stylistic descriptors for those unfamiliar with the band. Their brand of hardcore punk sources its guitars straight from bands like Pennywise ("Dead End") and Teenage Bottlerocket ("Lone Wolf"), while also injecting heavy metal elements ("Waiting For Death" sounds like Iron Maiden wrote a hardcore punk track), primarily in the form of ridiculously fast mini-solos that fly alongside Salomon's recognizable yell.

Now, whether you like the vocals or not comes down to a personal preference as they are rather an acquired taste. Salomon barks and howls with relentless passion throughout, leaving behind a sense of urgency few other Danish bands possess. In the past, he has largely drowned as a monotonous blur in their soundscape, but the deal with Svart Records has allowed the band to significantly improve on production. The record sounds crisp and the riffs are tighter than ever before, but more importantly, Salomon's yell stands out on its own much better than in the past.

Instrumentally, the band swears on ridiculous speed riffage throughout the album, thrashing and shredding like their lives depend on breaking at least a string or two per song. "Rot" is aggressively ferocious, and comes across as a piercing, in-your-face hardcore piece, while "Reunited" rips and tears the listener a new one with its furious, rapid-fire vocal mix. "By The Throat" slows things down for a brief moment, yet sounds impressively angry nonetheless. It's one of the few cuts on the album that allows for a breather, as otherwise the band tears away with such fiery speeds it risks leaving the listeners far behind in the process.

But outside of raw speed that translates into impressive urgency, Night Fever's model still suffers from a far too singular "fast, whether it makes sense or not" type of model despite an improved production. It means that the songs are almost indistinguishable from each other. That ensures uniformity for "Dead End", but it also prevents it from standing out in its genre internationally. The razor-sharp vocals coupled with this problem translate into a good record, but not one that threatens end-of-year lists come December this year.

Download: Dead End, Rot, Reunited, Life Is hell
For the fans of: Pennywise, Ignite, Poison Idea, Danzig
Listen: Facebook

Release date 02.02.2024
Svart Records