Calling all fans of Botch, Drowningman & Every Time I Die, this record is for you! Every one of you. And anyone else who likes their music powerful, intelligent and hard-hitting, you need this in your life, oh yes you do.

Hailing from the home of the infamous Milwaukee Metal Fest Since By Man have seemingly burst out of nowhere to create this: one of the most vibrant and fresh-sounding records in extreme hardcore today; each song a complex matrix of thrashed-out mathcore guitars, off-kilter rhythms, computer enhanced beats and vocals that twist and turn from frantic Blood Brothers to melodic Drowningman to a sharp mid-range scream that most HC-metal bands would give their left lung for!

The result is somewhat akin to being catapulted into a swarm of giant killer hornets and battered into submission before landing headfirst into Niagara Falls and repeatedly pummelled to a mushy pulp before being torn apart by a school of savage piranhas. Or something to that effect. Seriously, have these guys just graduated from the Milwaukee School of Screamo or something because this record as a whole, and Since By Man as a unit are just faultless, each listen presenting something new and exciting just waiting to jump out at you.

But, as with all good ‘math-core’ bands Since By Man allow their music to breath, blasting you away with an initial ferocious bite only to retreat into a twisting maze of scalic guitar passages before building and layering its different components to result in a final ear-shattering finale (see the aptly titled ‘Light Fuse Get Away’). Some solace is granted in the atmospheric ‘In Threes’ where melancholic guitar shading is overlapped with echoing vocals & experimental sounds, but SBM are at their element when things are most intense.

Everything about this band just exudes intense creativity from the chaotic artwork design (of which this arm of the band can be viewed on their website) to the Kurt Ballou-produced behemoth described above. Such a band this fresh and talented emerges from hardcore every once in a while and this year Since By Man deserve all the praise they can get! Buy.