Perth hardcore has always carried a certain ugliness to it — stripped-down, violent, and completely uninterested in polish — and The Chain tap directly into that tradition on Blind the World. Formed by members connected to bands like Miles Away and The Others, The Chain approach hardcore with almost caveman-level simplicity, but the album works precisely because of how committed it is to that mindset. There is no attempt to modernize the genre, no overly polished metalcore production, and no dramatic emotional theatrics trying to disguise the music as something deeper than it is. Instead, Blind the World thrives on blunt-force groove, filthy bass tone, stomping breakdowns, and bursts of chaotic punk energy that feel tailor-made for sweat-soaked rooms and violent live shows.

What separates the album from a lot of modern hardcore revival records, though, is how well The Chain understand pacing and momentum. The riffs themselves are often incredibly basic, but the way the band structures these songs gives them a hypnotic quality that keeps the record engaging long after the formula becomes obvious. They know exactly when to speed things up, when to let the grooves drag, and when to completely cave a song inward with a breakdown that feels physically oppressive. That understanding of tension is what gives the album its staying power.

“Useless” opens the record with immediate violence. The drums sound massive right away, deep and swollen without losing their punch, while the bass practically devours the mix with a buzzing low-end presence that becomes one of the defining characteristics of the entire album. The riffs are primitive in the best possible sense, locking into slow, ugly chugs that feel less like traditional songwriting and more like blunt rhythmic punishment. Even so, there is still a strong punk backbone underneath the heaviness. The song never collapses fully into beatdown worship because there is always some forward momentum driving it, whether through the pacing or subtle drum accents that keep the slower sections from becoming stagnant. It is ignorant hardcore executed with enough precision to feel genuinely exciting rather than lazy.

That balance between speed and groove becomes the record’s greatest strength. “Enemy” erupts into frantic hardcore chaos almost immediately, driven by fast d-beat drumming and ripping riffs that border on powerviolence intensity before the band suddenly drags everything into slower, dreadful stomps. The transitions feel natural rather than forced, which is crucial for music built around such drastic tempo shifts. A lot of hardcore bands rely on breakdowns as isolated moments, but The Chain make the movement between fast and slow feel like a core part of the songwriting itself. The production helps immensely here too, preserving enough clarity for the drums and bass to hit with full force without sanding away the grime that gives the album its character.

The vocal performance throughout Blind the World deserves particular praise because it perfectly matches the filth of the instrumentation. The vocals are harsh, deep, and constantly furious without sounding overly theatrical or artificially layered. There is a rabid quality to the delivery that gives the album a genuine sense of hostility. Rather than sounding polished or performative, the vocals feel raw and instinctive, which fits the record’s stripped-back aggression perfectly.

“Eye For Eye” highlights another side of the band’s appeal: their ability to make repetition feel hypnotic rather than repetitive. The fast, scaling riffs and bouncing two-step rhythms create a strangely addictive momentum, especially once the stretched-out guitar parts begin creeping into the track midway through. There is a grimy punk energy running through the song that recalls bands like Gag, where the chaos feels loose and filthy without completely falling apart structurally. “Prey” pushes harder into groove-oriented territory, slowly building tension with massive drums and distorted bass before collapsing into ugly, swinging rhythms designed for pure pit violence. Even the gang-vocal “oh oh ohs” sound genuinely nasty, adding to the atmosphere rather than coming across like obvious crowd-part bait.

One of the album’s strongest moments arrives with “Fool For Misery,” a track that demonstrates how effective The Chain can be when they stretch their formula slightly further. The song moves between blasting speed and crushingly slow grooves with impressive control, and the central breakdown feels genuinely suffocating because of how much low-end weight the band packs underneath it. The bass work throughout the record is consistently excellent, but here it becomes the centerpiece, turning otherwise simple riffs into something enormous through sheer density and tone alone. It is a perfect example of how Blind the World succeeds not through technicality, but through understanding how sound itself can create impact.

The production across the album deserves major credit for maintaining that balance between clarity and grime. Hardcore records built around this kind of low-end heaviness often collapse into muddy chaos, but Blind the World avoids that problem surprisingly well. “Celestial” especially benefits from the recording approach. The riffs and drums are stripped down to their absolute essentials, but the mix gives every hit a huge physical presence, making the song feel explosive despite how minimal the actual writing is. When the band slows things down again into another bass-heavy collapse, the groove feels almost impossible not to move to.

By the time “Insanity” and “The Last Thing You See” arrive, the album’s formula is completely established, but it still remains effective because of how fully the band commit to it. Nearly every song revolves around some variation of frantic punk speed crashing into slow-motion hardcore stomps, yet the consistency becomes part of the album’s identity rather than a flaw. “The Last Thing You See” is especially memorable because of how thunderous the bass sounds, transforming the slower sections into genuinely hypnotic mosh anthems.

“War Dogs” subtly shifts the dynamic by placing more focus on the drumming, giving the track a punchier and more overtly punk-driven feel. It is a small change, but enough to keep the album from becoming completely one-note. That attention to pacing is ultimately what keeps Blind the World engaging despite operating within such a narrow sonic lane.

The closing title track is one of the smartest moments on the album because it slightly eases back on the outright violence. “The Chain” trades some of the relentless aggression for a more mid-tempo and almost anthemic approach, built around repetitive riffs and vocal patterns that feel designed for live singalongs. The repetition becomes strangely captivating, and the inclusion of a small melodic guitar lead gives the track a different emotional texture without compromising the ugly hardcore identity the album spent its entire runtime building toward.

Ultimately, Blind the World succeeds because it never tries to be more complicated than it needs to be. The riffs are primitive, the breakdowns are caveman-level ignorant, and the lyrics are direct to the point of bluntness, but the execution is so locked in that the record becomes addictive. The Chain understand something many modern hardcore bands forget: not every album needs technicality, experimentation, or emotional grandeur to leave an impact. Sometimes all you need is massive drums, disgusting bass tone, pissed-off vocals, and grooves heavy enough to make people run through each other. Blind the World delivers exactly that, and it does so with conviction from start to finish.