Album Review : Strife – “Live At The Troubadour”

Strife’s Live At The Troubadour is a live album from 12 years ago that is finally seeing the light of day. Are we given a good live album in hardcore though or does it not carry the same weight as their live performance gives?

Featuring the original lineup and a set consisting of only their first 3 records from past label “Victory Records”, this album is for sure a treat for older fans of theirs.

From an audio aspect it comes off as very well done actually. You can feel the energy that not only Strife is putting out but that the crowd is also giving as well. The sound doesn’t come off as muzzled or fuzzy as some albums do nor does it come off sounding too processed. As expected though being a hardcore band and a live album from one none the less, the mic hand offs for crowd members to sing the lyrics can throw the song off just a bit because of it having a different audio volume for those moments.

From the moment “Waiting” kicks in the set full of hits and heavy, fast, and aggressive songs just doesn’t really let down. Clocking in at just under 45 minutes of relentless hardcore this is one album that each time I would listen to it after the first song or two just could not turn it off until the end.

There is also a DVD release of the show as well that will be released with the audio version but at time of review the DVD is not yet made available.

You can catch Strife on April 27th, 2018 headlining night one of “The Rumble” at Cobra Lounge in Chicago, IL.

Overall Strife has released a somewhat rare thing in hardcore which is a live album. Even with it being an older set coming out of almost no where, it is an absolute great one. This is something all hardcore fans and Strife fans should check out upon release.