GWH - The Spirit of Hate

Angry. Angry young man. This rather obscure Simpsons quote always comes to mind when seeing a Good Willed Hate concert. This band is all about the anger, and it works in their favour, because the most memorable aspect of their live shows is how brutal and in-your-face they are.

GWH have finally released a five track EP (seven if you get the bonus hidden ones) called ‘The Spirit of Hate’, and the name turns out to be an appropriate one because that spirit of hate and anger from the live shows has been successfully captured in the studio recordings. The songs that made the EP are short, loud, and straight to the point. GWH do not mess around or over-complicate things- when they want to say something, they say it as clearly and loudly as they possibly can, just to make sure you don’t misunderstand them.

The track list includes well-known GWH songs such as Myths, Life’s Just a Dream, and the singalong favourite Set Fire to the Amplifier. On certain discs, Freeway (my personal fave) is also included as a bonus track. I was surprised that Human Plague was not included, especially since the cover art is based on that song, but I suppose you can’t have everything.

While the sound quality is very good, I personally had an issue with the sound mixing. Obviously it’s not my place to tell a band how they should sound, but I thought the vocals sounded too loud and the guitars sounded too quiet, muffled even. It was okay on my headphones, but in my car the only thing I could hear was the vocals. This is a shame, because the guitar work on this album is very good, and I thought the album would’ve sounded better if the guitars weren’t constantly drowned out by the vocals.

Despite my issues with the mixing, I liked the music on this EP, which takes elements of hardcore, metal and punk to create a very heavy, very aggressive sound. The Spirit of Hate provides a great sample of GWH’s musical style for new fans, while also giving the established fans something to listen to between shows. It’s a promising studio debut which will hopefully be followed by many more.


MARK V