Behind Bars – As I Wait For Death
Behind Bars – As I Wait For Death
Self-released
Release Date: 12/12/2025
Review by Laura Barnes
8/10
As both a music-lover and nosy bugger, I love asking people why they enjoy listening to the type of music that they do. The answers vary, but there are a few answers that keep cropping up again and again: “it reminds me of when I was a teenager”, is a common one, along with “I don’t know! I just like it! Get out of my house!”. When it comes to Hardcore fans, however, they all seem to come up with the same answer:
“It’s been really good for my mental health.”
Now, I’m not exactly the biggest Hardcore fan out there, but even I can admit that there is something oddly life affirming about running around in a circle with a bunch of strangers while a man wearing a snapback screams about how life is, despite the endless miseries, ultimately worth living. Today, these men in snapbacks take the form of Behind Bars, a Belgian band that have been making their way around the European Metal and Hardcore circuit since 2015. Theirs is the sort of story that every independent band dreams about: after years of dragging their gear around from small venue to small venue, their talents were spotted by a scout from Wacken Open Air, and the band soon found themselves sharing stages with bands such as Flotsam & Jetsam, Stillbirth and Pro-Pain.
It’s not hard to see why. Behind Bars deliver the kind of blistering metallic Hardcore that makes crowds go coo coo bananas. It’s easy to imagine the scenes that will occur when tracks from this latest EP, “As I Wait For Death” are played live. Shirts will come off, beer will be spilled, and loving bruises will be both given and received.
“As I Wait For Death” is Hardcore in the Hatebreedian tradition. The riffs are fast and heavy; the breakdowns are violent, and there’s a recurring message of spiteful positivity running throughout. Ian “Husky” Huyskens sounds like a feral dog as he makes the declaration, “MOTHERFUCKER I’M STILL LIVING!” on the opening track ‘P.A.I.N.’ Meanwhile, ‘As I Wait For Death’ is very obviously a song about depression, and the near-constant repetition of the main riff merges perfectly with the pessimistic lyrics to create a soundscape that is so bleak that the Met Office should issue a weather warning (with the exception of that absolutely SICK guitar solo towards the end, of course).
The rest of the EP follows a very similar trajectory, with personal demons being exorcised with the power of the gang vocals and Almighty Breakdowns. ‘Spiral’ has a nice Thrashy influence running throughout, while closing track ‘Anthem’ deploys a bouncy bassline to bully the listener into getting their life back on track. In short, it’s Hardcore, and it’s good Hardcore. Very good Hardcore, in fact.
Are Behind Bars doing anything particularly original with the genre? To put it bluntly, it’d have to be a no, but that doesn’t necessarily negate the quality of this EP. Hardcore has never really been about twiddling your mustache and thinking about time signatures, has it? I’m no expert, but to me Hardcore is about staggering to your feet after falling down, spitting blood onto the ground, and declaring “I’m not gonna let anything stop me”. Judging by these standards, “As I Wait For Death” delivers, and then some.
TRACKLISTING:
1. P.A.I.N
2. As I Wait For Death
3. Spiral
4. Where Truth Lies
5. Anthem
LINKS:
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