by Cosmo Lee

It must be revenge for being fed to the lions. Christians are making some of the heaviest, most brutal music today. Hardcore punk label Facedown Records is largely responsible. Four Facedown bands are even playing Hellfest this year. How times have changed.

Bloodlined Calligraphy is one of the latest additions to the Facedown roster, and the band’s new album, “They Want You Silent” kicks like a mule on steroids. Singer Ally French is the band’s not-so-secret weapon. The only other female singers whose voice comes close in brutality are Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow and Walls of Jericho’s Candace Kucsulain, the latter contributes guest vocals on the album.

Stylistically, Bloodlined Calligraphy plays straight-up metallic hardcore with thrashy riffs and huge breakdowns. “Saturday Night in Dixie” is the album’s highlight with its neck-snapping breakdown leading to a surprisingly swinging groove worthy of Premonitions of War. Touches of Swedish metal in places help keep things interesting, and at a compact 28 minutes, the album is a tight nugget of hardcore.

Modern Fix caught up with the band on tour and drummer Carter answered a few questions.

Your website says your van “blew up” in Las Vegas - how much of an explosion are we talking about?
(laughs) It wasn’t really an explosion. It was more like a pop followed by lots of smoke and bubbling and profuse amounts of every fluid found under a cars hood. It’s cool though because we got to get a new van out of it, but we were stuck in Vegas way too long and had to cancel some shows.

Some of your tour venues include churches. Are they taken aback by the ruckus you bring?
Yeah, sometimes they are. Most are totally cool with what we do. But you run into certain ones that try and tell you basically that you aren’t Christian enough. But the good ones by far outweigh the bad ones.

The band is getting major magazine write-ups and selling out of merch. Has your lifestyle changed any?
Yes and no. Yes, because all our parents, friends and kids see us in magazines so they tend to think we are a lot bigger than we are. More kids are coming to shows and every show we get loads of kids that say they came because they saw us in a magazine. We get asked for autographs and hugs and pictures a lot more than we ever have in the past. The no part of the answer is there are still nights when we sleep at truckstops in our van. But things are definitely getting better each tour. So hopefully by our next tour, our answer will just be, ‘yes’.

Bane singer Aaron Bedard recently told a crowd, “If you expect a hardcore band to play a 15-song set, you’re crazy.” Is he wise or a wimp?
He’s a very very wise man. (laughs) With our band we always say, “Let’s go off for 8 songs, instead of going 50% for 12”.

www.blcmosh.com

2005 “They Want You Silent” (Facedown)
2004 “The Beginning of the End” (Strike First)
2002 “Say Hi to the Bad Guy” (Selah)