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Foundation - When The Smoke Clears

Rating

RIYL

Line of Scrimmage
Shattered Realm
Backtrack
Expire

Release Date

05/03/2011

Label

Bridge Nine

Tracklist

1. Purple Heart
2. At Your Mercy
3. Devotion II
4. A Thousand Ways
5. Anthem For Redemption
6. Calloused
7. No Cure For Fools
8. No One Writes Protest Songs Anymore
9. Never Stops Raining
10. The Sound of Arson

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Recent Ratings
Rick Gebhardt	Firebrandead
homemadebullshit	DevDawg
Bill Lohr

What my previous review of Foundation’s Hang Your Head boiled down to was this: they were that kid with taut cords of muscle who didn’t lift, yet had broad shoulders and a six pack. In a word, potential. The difference between Hang Your Head and When The Smoke Clears isn’t a dramatic re-invention of the Foundation sound, it’s a case of more meat on the album’s frame, of fleshing out the parts that were underdeveloped or too lean. They’ve put in the gym time, toiled and sweat and battled with the iron, and come out on the other side with the same proportions, just much bigger, denser, and grainier.

I used a variant of this metaphor with respect to Terror’s Keepers of the Faith, and there’s a reason I’m so fond of it. There’s a potency, a threat, and a strength that is quite visible, where brute force converges with art. With power lifting, we’re looking at numeric records that are aimed at posterity; with bodybuilding there are placings based on subjective observations, not unlike music. Hence, we’ll proceed with When The Smoke Clears’ hardcore, plain and simple, unadorned, but anything but basic in its emotional charge.

You’re not going to find expansive sonic vistas or hyper-technical work on this record, but this is just why the bodybuilding metaphor works. Foundation has joined the ranks of other hardcore bands that trade in genre conventions, yet they have more fully embodied and inhabited them this time around, and found a way to etch aesthetically pleasing lines into hard mass (it’s at this point that I guess I’ll say “I-told-you-so” when I predicted the next Foundation album would be a beast).

With not just a call to arms, but with an eye on posterity, as mentioned earlier, vocalist Tomas Pearson bellows, “Who will march forward / when the smoke clears,” in opening track “Purple Heart,” signifying the band’s stance as straight-edge standard-bearers, much like Terror has made claim to for the genre as a whole. While the sound may not be ambitious in the stretching of any boundaries, the attitude is, and it is just this conviction that pulls When The Smoke Clears forward. The ultimate sensation at the end of the record’s run-time is one of absolute exhaustion, as if you’ve just had your ass handed to you. That is the mark of an excellent hardcore release.

My odd-year theory continues as Foundation adds their excellent take on the straight-edge ethos to the pot of other class records put out in 2011 (see: Trap Them, Mother of Mercy, Endwell, Swamp Thing, et cetera). Bridge Nine hits another home run. Your move, Deathwish.

--Jacob Oliver