Police & Thieves

Armor y Guerra (2008)

writethatbitch

The latest four-song release, Armor y Guerra, has upped the ante on the previous P&T releases. For starters, the recording quality is much better and that leads to audible melodic hardcore with a dash of rock ‘n' roll. They've progressed in every way, elaborating on hardcore, post-hardcore, and rock ‘n' roll themes. The power of twofold guitars allows that elaboration - the guitars make this band. For the rock ‘n' roll feel- they've graced the record with pick slides and a handful of solos exploring the entire neck. Quick-paced riffs and aggressive palm muted strumming lead the build ups to slam-dance-able hardcore breakdowns complete with heavy drums at times.

Vocals aren't super deep or angry, but more like emotional shouting that almost paves the way for singing, but not quite. There are also a ton of gang vocals on this release, keeping it safely in the hardcore vein and unlike anything on their previous release - it's a pleasant addition, just judge from the notes I took while listening: "gang vox - track 2 - hell yes".

Overall it's faster and heavier - done with better recording quality yielding louder, more audible and therefore more believable emotion.

Police and Thieves tends to be more melodic than a lot of recent popular harDCore bands, which might explain the scarcity of kids at some Police and Thieves shows, assuming DC kids are much too hard for this melodic goodness. Or maybe kids are working together to protest the demise of the heavier sounding early 2000s Worn Thin, Carlos' previous band. Of course, many hardcore break-ups lead to amazing post-hardcore or variations-on-hardcore sounds. Well, Carlos' second band sticks in the realm of hardcore, but P&T adds a little more melody and rock ‘n' roll. Other DC greats Dag Nasty is probably the best reference point - obviously P&T studied at the same local school of harDCore.