'' The Concrete Confessional'' is the seventh studio album by American

metalcore Metalcore (also known as metallic hardcore) is a fusion music genre that combines elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. As with other styles blending metal and hardcore, such as crust punk and grindcore, metalcore is noted for its use of ...

band

Hatebreed Hatebreed is an American hardcore band from Bridgeport, Connecticut, formed in 1994. The band released its debut album '' Satisfaction is the Death of Desire'' in 1997, which gave the band a cult following. The band signed to Universal Records ...

. It was released on May 13, 2016, via

Nuclear Blast Nuclear Blast is a record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label mov ...

and was produced by Chris "

Zeuss Christopher Harris (born April 1, 1972), known professionally as Zeuss, is an American record producer, mixer, guitarist, composer, and songwriter. Biography Zeuss is best known in the worlds of hard rock, heavy metal music, hardcore punk, and ...

" Harris.

Background

On March 23, 2016, a trailer was uploaded to the Nuclear Blast

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel, detailing Hatebreed's upcoming album by revealing its cover art, track listing and release date. The trailer features several snippets of three songs from the album, these being "A.D.", "Looking Down the Barrel of Today" and "The Apex Within". The trailer also includes details of the band's upcoming tours across Europe and North America, in support of the album. An official lyric video for the first single from the album, "A.D", was released on April 8, 2016.

Writing and recording

According to an article published by

Loudwire ''Loudwire'' is an American online media magazine that covers news of hard rock and heavy metal artists. It is owned by media and entertainment business Townsquare Media. Since its launch in August of 2011, ''Loudwire'' has secured exclusive ...

, the album "deals heavily with topics such as social injustice, police brutality, drug abuse and self-positivity through positive mental attitude." On the lyrical themes surrounding the opening track "A.D.", lead vocalist Jamey Jasta stated that the song "was a way that I could voice my frustration about the loss of opportunities available to the average guy. With the government and big business drowning in corruption and greed, the average person is being squeezed, so achieving the American dream is becoming less and less real. We all need to pay closer attention to what our elected leaders are doing. Start locally, in your own community, make your representatives accountable."

Reception

''The Concrete Confessional'' received mostly positive reviews from critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the album holds a score of 72/100 based on four reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Track listing

Charts

References

2016 albums Hatebreed albums Nuclear Blast albums Albums produced by Chris "Zeuss" Harris {{2010s-metal-album-stub