Reviewed by David Ashley

Coinciding with the bands recent reforming 'The Complete Collection' is an exhaustive retrospective of their material. In their eight years together the Californian four-piece opened for Pantera, Mortal and P.O.D. and after their 1993 split Mark (vocals) and Jeff (bass) formed Stavesacre. Now no surprise - the punk hardcore style will thin out 80% of listeners straight away, but the biggest snag here is simply quality. Of the five releases which source this compilation three are listed as demos, and these are indeed crudely recorded. Added to this the lyric writing just isn't that great. I know no one is expecting Byron-esque poetry from a hardcore band but the screams and whines are tedious at best. I don't dislike The Crucified but I can't see this material impressing many except for their most hardcore (pun intended) fans. Studio tracks like "Straining Life" and "Focus" show promise but the majority of the tracks sound amateurish. You can acclimatise to this a little and it adopts a rough and ready, garage band kind of appeal - but this will only be the case for a few listeners. I am curious to see what The Crucified produce 15 years on but nothing stands out from this collection as being that memorable. The bonus DVD is a '90s curiosity but somewhat over-long.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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