Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees

Rate It! Avg: 3.5 (12 ratings)
Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees album cover
Album Information
EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 17   Total Length: 27:06

eMusic Review 0

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Phil Freeman

eMusic Contributor

01.31.12
Grindcore goes symphonic
2012 | Label: Relapse Records

Grindcore is not typically a restrained genre. The drums blast, the guitars and bass are a downtuned roar from the gutter, and vocals are hoarse, half-mad and choking with rage, whether politically motivated or just pissed off in some ill-defined way. Liberteer, a one-man project from Matthew Widener of Cretin, aims to up grind’s revolutionary quotient while also broadening its musical palette, and it succeeds admirably. With track titles like “Class War Never Meant More Than It Does Now,” “We Are Not Afraid of Ruins,” and particularly the unsubtle “99 to 1,” Widener’s politics are crystal clear, even when his lyrics are a harsh incomprehensible bark. But it’s the music that separates Liberteer from the pack. Widener has made a symphonic grindcore album, with triumphant horn fanfares and majestic surges from an orchestra bolstering the savage, 90-second tracks. A few songs are also adorned with delicately plucked banjo, giving them a backwoods ominousness that’s more threatening than any blast beat could ever be. Better To Die…packs 17 tracks into roughly 20 minutes, every one so fast and furious (and weirdly glorious) that, blasted through loudspeakers, it could easily turn a protest march into a mass sprint.

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grind my bell

phahahon

rapide ,puissant,efficace,riche et inventif oui,oui,c'est du grind

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Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees

phahahon

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! ohh! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH! stay free,please. grind will save your soul

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Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees

jdevans

I agree with the following review by Barkman: To the one-star reviewer: if you don't like Grindcore, please don't review the release - it is not helpful to other members. I enjoy many varieties of music - Grindcore is but one. I agree with Phil Freeman's review. As the genre goes, this is some pretty cool stuff here - I like the mix of different sounds blended in with the absolute brutality of the vocals and furious grind. I disagree with the tool who claims to like 'all kinds of music' (despite having downloaded only pop, pop-rock and 101 classical hits - presumably s/he skips anything on the latter before Mozart and after Beethoven's 8th symphony). Review the music, not your own half-witted political ideas.

user avatar

Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees

EMUSIC-0283D232

To say this album is a pile of manure would be an insult to manure. As others have indicated I like all kinds of music as well. But this is not music! It is a person raging at the very machine that gives him the opportunity to create, and I use the term loosely, his musical genre. Power cords with no real artistry. Drums that seek to drive anyone who would listen into submission rather than support the rhythm of the music itself. The instrumentation is so harsh and such an affront to the senses that the words get lost. When you finally peel back the layers of this rotting onion, the lyrics are an insult to society. This is a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the Occupy movement. Those of us that like real music should be thankful the people in the Occupy Movement don't have jobs and can't afford to buy a record.

user avatar

Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees

EMUSIC-0283D232

To say this album is a pile of manure would be an insult to manure. As others have indicated I like all kinds of music as well. But this is not music! It is a person raging at the very machine that gives him the opportunity to create, and I use the term loosely, his musical genre. Power cords with no real artistry. Drums that seek to drive anyone who would listen into submission rather than support the rhythm of the music itself. The instrumentation is so harsh and such an affront to the senses that the words get lost. When you finally peel back the layers of this rotting onion, the lyrics are an insult to society. This is a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the Occupy movement. Those of us that like real music should be thankful the people in the Occupy Movement don't have jobs and can't afford to buy a record.

user avatar

Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees

EMUSIC-0283D232

To say this album is a pile of manure would be an insult to manure. As others have indicated I like all kinds of music as well. But this is not music! It is a person raging at the very machine that gives him the opportunity to create, and I use the term loosely, his musical genre. Power cords with no real artistry. Drums that seek to drive anyone who would listen into submission rather than support the rhythm of the music itself. The instrumentation is so harsh and such an affront to the senses that the words get lost. When you finally peel back the layers of this rotting onion, the lyrics are an insult to society. This is a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the Occupy movement. Those of us that like real music should be thankful the people in the Occupy Movement don't have jobs and can't afford to buy a record.

user avatar

Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees

Barkman

To the one-star reviewer: if you don't like Grindcore, please don't review the release - it is not helpful to other members. I enjoy many varieties of music - Grindcore is but one. I agree with Phil Freeman's review. As the genre goes, this is some pretty cool stuff here - I like the mix of different sounds blended in with the absolute brutality of the vocals and furious grind.

user avatar

Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees

EMUSIC-02964172

This is not music. This is some king of monster who is ranting

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