Band:	Endstand
Album:	The Time Is Now
Style:	Hardcore
Release date:	2006

01. Way Out
02. Whatever It Takes
03. King Of drama
04. Counting The Days
05. Right From The Start
06. To Feel Alive
07. Lost Balance
08. These Scars Won't Heal
09. Empty Promises
10. Sometimes Dreams Might Come True

Finland's hardcore act Endstand have been around for a decade, released tons of records, played a massive and impressive amount of shows across Europe and eventually did not fail to dig their little spot in the old-school hardcore world. I thought it was necessary to remind that they are no newcomers so you won't get the erroneous idea that they are jumping on the bandwagon in a time when about every teenage kid with acne all over his face can throw a hardcore/metal act together and get signed on a major without effort. Endstand have been around for long. Unfortunately that doesn't make this album good.

The biggest flaw I find on The Time Is Now is that it's so generic. Like the kind of stuff we have heard by twenty different bands a day over the last ten years. Yes, with their mix of melodic metal and old-school hardcore, Endstand would have been original in 1995. Now everybody does that. Therefore this album lacks in catchiness, in any kind of momentum, in just a little something that would make it rise out of the mass. This something could be the few melodic hooks you find on "Whatever It Takes" or "To Feel Alive" had they been more frequent. Or it could be the atmospheric experimentations of "Sometimes Dreams Might Come True", the best song here and the only one that is a bit original.

But the something I'm referring to above certainly won't be the flat production that drains all the life out of this record, and even less the annoying vocals of the singer Janne. He sounds too one-dimensional and never departs from these half-spoken half-screams that keep plodding on and on forever and certainly don't help to make something interesting out of this album. If his singing style doesn\'t show a certain loss of motivation, I don't know what does.

Ultimately, I'm being very harsh with this album because I had high hopes of being manhandled by the stalwarts of Finnish hardcore, as the press put it everywhere. To be honest it has its moments, like on the songs I mentioned above and the two catchy old-school hardcore hymns "Way Out" and "Empty Promises". But those few songs don't save this album from being a semi-failure in all aspects. It lacks any form of kick in the ass, which is what you ask from hardcore after all. To use a very bad and easy pun, The Time Is Later, definitely not now.

Highlights: Sometimes Dreams Might Come True, Whatever It Takes, Empty Promises