The chaotic, distorted guitar riffs of Yellow and Red Lion are the first thing you hear on the track "Islands To Burn". It sort of reminds me of The Dillinger Escape Plan, but trust me, these guys are by no means a ripoff, they have an identity of their own. The thunderous drumming and bone grinding, anguished vocals give this song some bite. It gets mellow for a few seconds, then breaks back into the chaotic sound you're used to. The start/stop distorted guitars and pounding rhythm section do a number on your ears as Black Lion screams his lungs out. Double bass drumming and distorted guitars begin the madness on "Stolen Footsteps". Black Lion begins screaming and the band comes to life. Eventually the vocals join the instrumentation in becoming a constant barrage of hatred. The bass and guitars begin "Hope Kills Fear", before being joined by the furious drumming of Green Lion. Angry, anguished vocals hit you like a slap across the back of the head. It gets chaotic, as riffs fall from the sky like rain and the drums just pound away. The feeding back guitar intro to "Success Is The Best Revenge" is fleeting, as screaming vocals and thundering rhythm hits you like an angry wave. It gets chaotic, then the vocals get mellow, soon snapping back into angry mode. The band thunders along, as guitar riffs rip you apart. The ambient, buzzing guitar intro of "The Coward's Trance" reminds me of church, as a choir sings and you're taken back to those days of confession where you were told to repent for your sins. Fuck that! The feeding back, burning guitar comes at you first, soon joined by the rhythm section. It is slow and trudges along, eventually joined by mellow vocals. The vocals soon turn angry and the screaming begins. The song gets faster as drums go apeshit and the chaotic sound begins. It gets hard to hear all of the sonic destruction going on, but the song comes to a sudden stop and you're left with a feeling of loss. The vocals start right from the beginning of "Every Man's Got A Devil", joined by the fast and heavy guitar, bass, and drum attack. It continuosuly slows down, only to get heavy and chaotic over and over again. This song is about believing in yourself and not needing to rely on other things to make your life worth living. I give this album an 8 out of 10. The music is solid, carried by distorted guitars and chaotic landscapes. This album should appeal to fans of The Dillenger Escape Plan and One King Down.

Make room for one of the most emotionally charged, rabid splits since the whole Noah/ Arc thing. Racetraitor begin you aural implementation with three servings of precociously raw, powercore spiked with glass shards, an experience almost parallel to Indecision and Kiss It Goodbye in a bar fight. Then, just when you think it's safe to start hunting down your spleen, Burn It Down answer with three inspiring anthems that drain the soul like musical scores to Norse gods at war. This comes complete with testicle wrenching bellows, a drummer who sounds like he's raiding a balloon factory with a fist full of rusty nails, and more angst-ridden intelligence than most cranially challenged artists in the scene can shake a severed finger at.

Powerful fucking hard-core. That about sums it up really. Race Traitor smash through three songs with a total metal sound. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it hits hard- it's just that I thought Burn It Down took this one. Their three song offering pounded one second and raced smoothly the next. Lyrically, these guys are on it. Bashing consumerism and mindless following. I can feel the passion and conviction burst out at me. Sometimes I forget why I love hard-core so much. It's not about the sound as much as the smashing of convential thought and ideas. Well done.

OH SHIT!!!! That's all I have to say about this cd, but I guess for reviewing purposes, I must say more. I've been waiting forever to get ahold of some material by Racetraitor to review and it has been well worth the wait! They kick off the game with three tracks of pure metal drenched mayhem with crushing...EVERYTHING! "Islands To Burn," Stolen Footsteps," and "Hope Kills Fear" rule it all with pure fury and some of most well articulated lyric writing in the bis! I've never heard Burn It Down, but they are incredible! "Success Is The Best Revenge" would make Cave In blush with the rampage demonstrated here before cutting into soft vocals and a wicked (as in dark) sounding riff. "The Coward's Trance" shows a truely original delivery with an intro that has angelic choir voices chanting all over with sonic soundscape that would make Trent Reznor turn his head before blowing shit up. Burn It Down's singer completely looses his marbles screaming/crying/whatever midsong through distortion on "Every Man's Got A Devil." This song is the most pissed, insane song I honestly have EVER heard. WOW! Make Them Talk is the best split of '99, easily.

Two of the US's more political bands team up for this devestating release. Racetraitor combine bonecrunching riffs and just plain sick vocals with a sense of urgency and impending disaster. Burn It Down veer towards the crazier, noisier side but again impress with a powerful take on what seems an oversubscribed genre. Maybe what separates these bands from the crowd is that there is real thought and motivation not just in the music but in the message as well.

6 brand new brutalized epics from these two hard as fuck masters. Each band gives three new songs. Both bands are great. Damn, this is a great EP. Buy this, it will blow you away.

Breakout the earplugs because this CD is going to make your ears bleed. Although it is only six tracks long it lasts almost a half-hour. Racetraitor hits you with morbid metal that makes head-banging fun again, not that it ever wasn't. Listening to the vocalist's screams makes my throat bleed just from imagining how it must feel to sing like this. I love the fact that despite these guys sounding metal as hell, they are still able to incorporate lyrics from Lauryn Hill into a song. Burn It Down continues where Racetraitor left off by keeping the metal strong and the blood flowing. I honestly think I would be afraid to listen to this with the lights off because it has such a dark yet mesmerizing feel. This is a great CD that will keep me looking for more from both of these bands. These are two of the best metal bands I've heard in a while. So get some ear plugs, grow your hair long and start head-banging.

This is a split between two of hardcore's up and coming bands. On the Racetraitor side, we've got a bit of a Snapcase sound, beefed up and crunchy, but still reminiscent of Steps-era Snapcase. What makes Racetraitor unique is it goes from a slow groove to speed blasts that are almost grindcore. Vocally, this is a monster. Strained screaming with a little bit of spoken word stuff. Imagine Snapcase crossed with Disembodied. They list themselves as the "Voltron Lions" e.g. Black Lion on vocals, Yellow Lion on guitar, etc... Awesome. As for Burn It Down, this is an insane mix of Dillenger Escape Plan and Coalesce. Thick noise mixed with tight, spazzy guitars. Musically, it's incredible that they make this much noise as a four piece. They do the whole weird, eerie noise thing that seems to be all the rage now, then break down into a slow, sludgy groove. A good mix of slow groove, fast noise, and sung/screamed vocals. This is brutal and well worth looking into for you fans of the extreme noise/metal sound found on both the Edison and Hydrahead record labels. Both Racetraitor and Burn It Down are gonna be big.

Ok, I need some help. What's the difference between hardcore, grindcore, and metal again? Both of these bands ahve blurred the line. It's loud, hard to understand the lyrics and generally hyper-aggressive. Wait, maybe that's the new title; hyper-aggressive. Six song EP that makes your ears bleed.

Think the East and West Coasts are the only hardcore and/or metalcore meccas producing worthwhile music? Well, Burn It Down and Racetraitor are two raging slabs of midwestern metalcore straight out of some cornfield- ahem- asylum. Racetraitor's staccato, two-axe attack screams, "Ass, meet the floor" via machine-gunned drumming and throat-tearing screams to chill one's blood. This crew gets props for quoting Lauryn Hill, too. The risk-taking, more experimental Burn It Down features fellow music scribe Ryan Downey on vocals. He sings/screams as well as he writes. His melodic crooning provides a nice break in the middle of the songs instead of just a rehashed slow guitar part. Burn It Down experiments with stunning, choral vocals like angels from heaven. Of course, the angel songs are blown to hell by an explosion of noisy, Converge-like riffs.

Nothing new here from these two hardcore bands. Racetraitor is up first, and it seems that they enjoy the death metalcore style, complete with gutteral vocals, churning guitars and blast beat drums ("Islands To Burn"). Burn It Down also flexes their metalcore music, yet they seem more upbeat, leaning more in the Deftones vein ("Success Is The Best Revenge"). If these styles appeal to you then check out this split CD, and www.trustkill.com for more info.

What I consider two of 1999's most brutally intense hardcore bands hammer home with wrecking ball accuracy their definition of what it means to assault you musically to the point of keeping you in a body cast for months to come. Race Traitor continue to make progress in their horribly misunderstood message by making the vision clearer to the listener, but pounding them just the same with their slow, metallic, mechanistic style that is about as serious as gang green... these guys are so direct and uncompromising live it's almost scary, I'm in awe every time. Buy Burn It Down get my nod for favorite here as they combine a style that embraces as much of later 108 (in both music and politics) as it does the messy meshing of noise and destruction of Coalesce. This is purepower. And while those bands may have alienated some due to their unabashed aggressiveness, Burn It Down redirect that splattering of beautiful confusion and make it somewhat accessible... perhaps. Nah, fuck analyzation, this just destroys most anything going. Get it.

This is the second best CD of 1999. No shit, I know I have been rambling on and on about how good CDs are, but this is one of the top discs. Two of the best midwest bands (Chicago/Indianapolis) are back with three incredible songs each. Personally, I like Burn It Down a little more..."The Coward's Trance" is the best song that I think Burn It Down has put out. It starts out with a choir and almost a religious feel and then it kicks into a slow and extremely heavy bridge, until the absolutely brutal end. Race Traitor's "Hope Kills Fear" is all over the place. I think that both of these bands perfectly compliment one another. The transition between bands is perfect... I could go on and on... get this.

These two Midwestern heavyweights combine to destroy you with one of the more pummeling releases of the year. Grab on tight, because this record demands your attention. Race Traitor belt out some of their heaviest songs to date. Think metal, politics, heavy breakdowns, and the sickest vocals around. Always mastered with an original slant, RTís musicianship shines while the lyrics aim to expose and question. Burn It Down attack things with a bit less metal and combine equal parts of the old and new schools of hardcore: the spirit of the old and the heaviness and message of the new. To be unmoved by these three BID songs would seriously connote a state of comatose. While impressively showing their quality and potential on this record, these two bands are bound to stir an even bigger commotion in the next year or so.

Two great bands from the Midwest teaming up on one record. Race Traitor, my personal favourites deliver three new songs. Race Traitor added a little twist to their music, became less chaotic and a thousand times more brutal. The three songs on this record blow away their entire debut release on Uprising records, and let me tell you that's also an amazing record! The other band, Burn It Down from Indy, also kick ass! Burn It Down play more metal based hardcore with a lot of tricky, technical metal guitar riffs, and amazing vocal parts. Both bands cover political issues with their lyrics, and have outspoken views on issues varying from politics and religion. Definitely another winner for Trustkill records.

Racetraitor kick off Make Them Talk with three songs of overly metallic, heavy hardcore. Besides a little too cute fascination with Voltron (just check their monikers), Racetraitor are a sufficiently pummelling, buffeting and competent metal/hardcore outfit, even if innovation is not particularly their strong suit. Burn It Down is the real prize of this split, however. While still lacking in the finer aspects of production, Burn It Down continue their steady evolution as one of the genres most promising bands, showing that their EP, East, Sleep, Mate, Defend (on Escape Artist), wasn't a fluke, just a warning of things to come. The same musical complexity as Deadguy is being mined, combined with some overly metallic mosh riffs, but a more ambient slant is explored on Make..., coupled with a progression in both the playing and the songwriting that retains a sing/scream along quality that always scores points with the kids.

Well I'll just start things off here by letting you know that within the first thirty seconds of this disc I immediately decided it's a must that I go buy the other Racetraitor releases. These guys are so good, it sickens me. Heavy as hell. Not your average heavy though. Totally on the metal side of things, which I definitely like. Lots of heavy double-bass and the vocals just smash a lot of vocalists I've heard of the years. Stressed out as hell but still deep and down to earth, which is very important. Their three tracks just floor me. Then they're followed by a band I've been into for a while now but have been listening to the same thing over and over. Well finally I get some new tracks. First off, I heard a few of these live when I saw them on their first east coast tour, and I was insanely impressed. And usually that ends up to be half as impressed as I am when I finally hear them recorded. And this was the case. The first one is pretty crazy while still being pretty heavy and even catchy at times. Ryan takes a stab at singing on this one and it sounds superb. It's not too emo but it's not his normal screaming either, so it's a good change of pace. The second song starts off with a noise/chorus thing for about a minute and a half, and then hits you with some slowed down, more metal-sounding stuff. But just when you think it's gonna be really heavy, he sings again. Sheer brilliance, as it all flows perfectly. Then they get to the noise and screaming but still keep everything kind of slow for you to consume. This is definitely my favorite track. The third one sounds like normal Burn it Down stuff, being faster and more hardcore than the other two tracks. This split is definitely in constant rotation in my stereo. I definitely can't wait for even more stuff by both of these bands! Congratulations to Trustkill, Racetraitor, and Burn it Down for releasing one of the best split CD's I've ever heard.