While my perception of what Hardcore is, and the ideologies that fuel the scene and the bands that are a part of it, differ widely from a kid making his or her first foray into its turbulent waters, there is a fundamental universal truth about which we agree wholeheartedly. When music hits you on a purely emotional level, when it resonates with power, energy and unbridled fury and just makes you want to move, to sing, dance and throw caution to the wind, when that happens all that baggage and all of those ideas that throw walls up between the generations, just fade away. All that matters is the music and the message. And, on Better Ash than Dust, Stick To Your Guns, with their musical fusion of Terror, Boysetsfire, Funeral For A Friend and Hatebreed have proved that they have both in abundance. You can’t fake the kind of sentiment and underlying, all-encompassing devotion that this EP is riddled with. Every note played, every sentence sung, it all comes from their heart and it all sounds… Well, it sounds incredible. And that my friends, really is a universal truth… Tim Cundle