Metal&Shit Forums

I'm guessing that some of you here must be big fans of classic 'old-school' metal bands and records---and when it comes to death metal, I feel Broken Hope (from Chicago, Illinois) were a pretty cool (under-rated) band of the old-school crop of pioneering legends.

I discovered Broken Hope soon after I had already been awe-struck by classic Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Malevolent Creation, Morbid Angel, Obituary and Suffocation, to name the automatic honour roll of death metal valedictorians of the late-'80s-early-'90s. Broken Hope were a proficient bunch of players that played aggressive, thrashy, brutal death metal, while never too technical or complex, was always catchy and cool, in a very entertaining, positive way. They never quite got the attention or praise I thought they deserved. I won't say that all their records and/or songs were awesome, but for old-school dm enthusiasts, Broken Hope are definitely worth a try. I have all their albums: Swamped in Gore, The Bowels of Repugnance, Repulsive Conception, Loathing, and Grotesque Blessings. I enjoy all of them, though my favourites are probably Bowels and Loathing.

http://www.myspace.com/brokenhopeusa

I only discovered this band a few months ago, and the little that I've heard sounds great. I'm hoping to acquire Swamped in Gore sometime soon.

Great to hear that, twins. All their records are at least very good, enjoyable old-school material, and I already mentioned my stand-out favourite two releases, above. Swamped in Gore is the debut, and is a perfect place to start with this excellent, old dm band.

RIP Joe. You will be missed.

When I was getting into DM I remember checking out a couple BH CD's at a local store with a listening station. At that time I was as much of a fan of the engineers and producers, if not more then some of the actual bands. And the Broken Hope CD's I checked out, I remember were very very well produced. The riffs didn't quite jump out at me in any significant way. They were decent. But the tones they got & the actual playing were definitely well done.


I remember reading a few things about them back in the early 90's. They seemed to get a lot of bad press by some of the underground zines. I don't remember if they were CD reviews, or letters or what. But for like a year or two it seemed like they were the butt of a few peoples jokes. I never thought they were terrible. And like I said, they always had great sounding albums. I wonder if they were primadonnas toward other bands, or earned a bad reputation some way, or if they were just the victim of haters?

Yea, Warlock, I never thought that Broken Hope were trail-blazing pioneers with blatant 'originality' to their music---but like I said earlier they played with a lot of heart and never tried to over-complicate their music. It was just mostly simple, to-the-point, yet abrasive, no-mince death metal served sizzling hot. .

I'm aware of the band had become the butt of disparaging dismissals by some self-styled elitist snobs that seemed to think they knew best about what's hot and what's not, in death metal. It was strange because Broken Hope were no wanna-be act, no near-clone of other dm powerhouse and certainly didn't play trendy death metal or anything----so I never quite got what the lame dissing was all about. I mean, they weren't exactly Cannibis Corpse (though they are in fact okay, in parts) or some Spinal Tap gimmick. So yea, I absolutely think that Broken Hope are blatantly under-rated.

You're spot-on about the stand-out feature of such an old-school dm band of that particular era putting out full-length albums of such superior sound and all-round production. Of course, the quality playing helped, no end.