You can trust Louder
When talking about veteran bands the phrase ‘They’ve never sounded better’ gets bandied around a lot.
It’s usually nonsense, and Sick Of It All should be held up as a barometer of what actually refusing to age, slow down or lose any of the fire that made your early years so vital actually sounds like. Once more they’ve delivered a set of utterly raging and totally inspiring hardcore.
What often gets overlooked with Sick Of It All is the fact that this isn’t just one-dimensional hardcore punk. Bull’s Anthem goes full Dropkick Murphy’s punch-drunk bar room singalong, and Always With Us is a brilliant and emotionally stirring half time chugged ode to lost friends.
So, although they might have sounded better on, say, Scratch The Surface, Sick Of It All have always sounded better than 99% of their peers… and they still do.
For Fans Of: Murphy’s Law, Agnostic Front, Madball
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Stephen joined the Louder team as a co-host of the Metal Hammer Podcast in late 2021, eventually becoming a regular contributor to the magazine. He has since written hundreds of articles for Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Louder, specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal. He also presents the Trve. Cvlt. Pop! podcast with Gaz Jones and makes regular appearances on the Bangers And Most podcast.