Album Review: Polar - This Polar Noise

I don’t know why but I was fully prepared to write Polar off as another insignificant, dull metalcore band. Well dudes, I was totally wrong and I doff my cap to you before chowing down on it with a large slice of humble pie for dessert. It seems Wolf At Your Door have dug up another gem and ‘This Polar Noise’ is a cracking slab of frenetic, off-kilter hardcore.

The obvious comparison point here is ‘Orchestra of Wolves’ era Gallows. The discordant riffs are meticulously thought out but played with a loose swagger that made the Watford boys such an enticing prospect in the first place. However Polar defiantly have their own thing going on, taking the off-kilter hardcore blueprint and fucking around with it just enough to keep things exciting. Some of the riffs here are colossal, just check out the final quarter of ‘Smile You Son of a Bitch’ for an outro Raised Fist would be proud of.

Vocally, Adam Woodford’s husky barks carefully avoid the trap a lot of heavy vocalists fall into, namely forgetting about dynamics and just being as Br00tal as possible start to finish. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of heavy here but Woodford adds fine touches of melody and defined annunciation that compliment the raging guitars they sit over.

For all the cries of heavy music becoming stagnant every now and then a band comes along that sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the generic masses, Polar are defiantly one of those bands and they fully deserve your love and support

4/5

'This Polar Noise' by Polar is released on February 21st through A Wolf At Your Door Records.

Polar on MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.

Barney Dufton