A punky version of In My Eyes

A new review by the people @ Poison Free.com:


Heartfelt are from the Netherlands and were born in 2002 when the singer of a band called Think Ahead left the band and the other members decided to carry on with a new singer, a new name and a sound slightly different from the typical old school sound they had done so far. By today Heartfelt already released 2 MCDs , played shows with bands like Have Heart, Good Riddance or The Hope Conspiracy and toured the UK.

Despite this history I had never heard of Heartfelt before holding “Take it or leave it”, their debut full length in my hands. Musically I guess the term HardcorePunk describes Heartfelts sound the best. In contrast to other bands this term is used on, like e.g. Kid Dynamite and the likes, Heartfelt mix up 88 style youth crew HC with melodic skate punk and sound mostly more hardcore than punkrock to me and remind me of melodic hardcore bands like Damage Control, the more hardcore influenced songs of Crime in Stereo or a slightly more punky version on In my Eyes. This means mostly fast melodic songs with a couple of nice danceable mid tempo parts.

The record was recorded at the place were bands like Dead Stop and Justice recorded their previous stuff and therefore sounds really good, but still punky and not overproduced. The lyrics are mostly very straight up and deal with the aspects and problems of the youth growing up in the world today.

If you ask me, Heartfelt released a great record with “Take it or leave it”. I hope this record will get the attention it deserves. This is seriously one of the better European releases right now and anyone who likes old school HC with melodies should give these guys a shot. You can download 2 free mp3s on Shield Records Homepage: www.theshieldhardcore.com. Check this one out!