When Philadelphia 5 piece Jesus Piece burst onto the scene in 2015, there was quite the buzz around the Hardcore scene and for very good reason. You see this is a band that doesnt bother with niceties. The band has one single goal and that is to make sure that every track bludgeons you to death. One look at any of the numerous live performance on YouTube will tell you that the band can also back this up in the live arena. But 7/8 years is a long time in the Hardcore scene and for better or for worse other buzz bands from around that time have gone in very different directions (take a bow Turnstile and Code Orange.)

So where are Jesus Piece in 2023? Still in the business of head smashing?

Absolutely they are. ….So Unknown is as brutal an album you could hope for. The breakdowns are bigger, the riffs are meatier and the Death Metal influence, which has always been part of the bands sound has been kicked up a notch. It’s not a stretch to say that vocalist Aaron Heard has one of the most gorgeously guttural voices in modern Hardcore cutting through all the noise with an aggression that’s almost palpable. See opener In Constraints if more proof is needed. Luis Aponte’s drumming is also something to behold. His ability to choose when a huge bit of slow stomping or double kick drum is needed is quite special and his knack for restraint at times just adds so much more to tracks like Gates Of Horn or An Offering To The Night. But it’s those downtuned discordant riffs that are at the heart of Jesus Piece and while the bones of “classic” Jesus Piece remain, there’s a bit of a Kurt Ballou influence creeping in on tracks like Stolen Life and Tunnel Vision.

If you were a fan of Jesus Piece before then ….So Unknown will not offer much in the way of suprises, but it absolutely will get you hospitalised in the pit and if you are new to the band, then congratulations because you just discovered new levels of heavy you previously thought unreachable. Blistering stuff by a band on fire….Chris Andrews