Witness is the second album released by Iowa hardcore quintet Modern Life Is War, released in 2005 via Deathwish Inc. This is the last M.L.I.W. album to feature Chris Honeck on bass and Matt Hoffman on guitar, as both members would leave the band after the album's release. The album cover was created by Converge singer J. Bannon, and features an image of Main Street, Marshalltown - the city in Iowa where the band members are from - taken in 1896. Building on the success and hype of M.L.I.W.'s previous album, 2003's My Love. My Way., Witness became a watershed record for the band, selling well in hardcore circles and achieving acclaim from numerous music publications and website reviews. It is normally considered the band's finest release. The song "Martin Atchet" is based on Peter Milligan's graphic novel Skin, which revolves around the story of a young skinhead, Martin Atchitson, who grew up in 1970's London with thalidomide-related birth defects. To commemorate its 10th anniversary, Modern Life is War reissued a remastered version of the album with updated packaging and liner notes on June 2, 2015 followed by a nine-date North American tour.
Witness is a good hardcore album. Outstanding tracks are "The Outsiders (AKA Hell Is for Heroes Part I)" and "D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S.". I sometimes find the vocals a bit bleak and unconvincing, but the great instrumental part surely makes up for it.
DEAD RAMONES
I wasn’t expecting much going in since hardcore isn’t usually my genre, but this floored me. Witness avoids the standard breakdown clichés and instead goes for something slower, heavier, and more melodic. That restraint makes the brutality hit harder. The vocals can be a grind and I can see how they’d put people off, but I got used to them quickly. What matters is how much emotion they carry. The lyrics add another dimension. Songs like Marshalltown capture small-town frustration, anger, and restraint in a way that feels raw but thoughtful. It's personal and political. D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S. is more upbeat and immediate, showing they could step outside the gloom without losing power. At 27 minutes it’s the perfect runtime: intense, emotional, and over before the weight of it wears off. I ended up loving this far more than I expected. 4,5*
I want to thank the person who put this album in this list. Amazing, gripping, emotive (post?) Hardcore.
It's hardcore, but a bit more wall of sound in the music-part of it
Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Dead Ramones, Young man blues
He's gonna need a strepsil! Hell of a heavy, and a hell of an album. What a band
Oh Witness is right up my street, it gives me mid 00 vibes of acts like Alexisonfire or Rise Against (maybe vocally more than musically there) or even Anti-Flag with their intensity in places but they're heavier and more screamy, and it really leaps out to my ear in the same ways. Good melodies, heavy gritty riffs, vocals are so-so but they work in the context of the music, I'd happily listen again, 4.
Awww the boy with the microphone needs a cuddle.
Yawwwwn.....really? Can they not employ their talents to something other than this tired rehashed genre. Without a vestige of originality or skill.
This boy screams at you for 26 minutes.
D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S. is the standout track from this. There's enough variety in the music to make the shoutiness less oppressive, and it's short enough to get the message across without overstaying its welcome. Better than it might otherwise have been.
Screamy emo punk. I consider myself to be a fan of that kind of music, but this was just kinda alright. Better stuff out there.
An interesting yet quick album. Overall this was okay!
Short and sweet. I'm not much of a metalhead, but the music was good. Couldn't catch much of the lyrics.
That's definitely some more hardcore. I don't know. Like punk, I think it is fundamentally anachronistic past a certain point, and that point for hardcore is, you know, the Eighties. Thrash thrash, shout shout. Within these constraints this is very solid, and as a bonus very succinct.
Solid bit of hardcore punk
This is decent hardcore. Although I'm not a huge hardcore punk fan I liked it. Perhaps wouldn't have gotten much further if it wasn't relatively short though. 3.
Add one more to my list of I enjoyed this. Thought it was a good record but I’d love to hear from the person who put this on the list the why behind adding it. Other than being a good record what pushed it over the top to be 1000 to hear record. Because I thought it was good. I enjoyed it. But I feel I’m missing something that others have seen.
Mercifully short
Not bad
lmao 3
Its pretty good but made me yearn for Relationship of Command by At the Drive in
These guys are angry about something
Too much screaming. How on earth do you your like that? Kidding aside, poignant lyrics really a testament to the time it was recorded. Just hurts the ears after a while.
This kind of reminded me of something good (Rise Against) but it wasn't that.
Lots of passion, but not something I enjoy much.
Midwest hardcore from the 2000s. This was about what I was expecting it would be. It was fine.
Hardcore punk, melodic hardcore. Demasiados gritos... Un 2.
Just a bit angry for my Monday morning commute
thrash metal bs.
I don't like punk rock
Hardcore punk, melodic hardcore. Demasiados gritos... Un 2.
Vocals killed this one for me, the instrumentals were interesting enough for a mid-aughts hardcore LP, but the raspy, abrasive shouting sat on top of the mix and kinda drowned everything else out.
Why put shite like this on the list??
No lo voy a terminar de escuchar.
This is the kind of punk I just can’t enjoy. There’s something that differs between screaming punk and screaming metal that makes the punk sound so much worse. Sometimes the older simpler albums are better for a reason. This was pretty modern and you could feel some of that in the album but not for improvements. This album just felt like tense anger without any real message. 3.5/10