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Universal Paranoia is Raw Breed's Universal Paranoia LP. Long Denver hardcore torch bearers, UNIVERSAL PARANOIA is Raw Breed's most realized offering to date, capitalizing on the band's marriage of instinctual NYHC groove and unbridled aggression. Featuring members of other Denver greats like Candy Apple, The Consequence, Direct Threat and Prowler - Raw Breed is nothing short of a devastating blow.
Our take: Universal Paranoia is the debut album from Denver’s Raw Breed, coming to us on their hometown label Convulse Records. I hadn’t heard Raw Breed’s earlier releases, but Universal Paranoia is an ambitious and powerful record with a distinctive sound. Raw Breed fuses elements of hardcore and underground death metal in a way that reminds me of Public Acid, but with Public Acid’s d-beat foundation exchanged for late 80s and 90s US hardcore. While the music is dirty and driving punk, tracks like “Damnation” and “Isolated Reality” have mosh parts that wouldn’t be out of place on an Only the Strong or Victory Style compilation. It’s an interesting vibe, taking those crowd-pleasing parts and making them sound dirtier and more dangerous. I like Raw Breed’s vocals too, which sound like the perfect mix of a hardcore bark and a death metal growl… like John Brannon trying to sing for Morbid Angel or something. Toward the end of the record, Raw Breed messes with the formula a bit, throwing in noisy and progressive passages on tracks like “Malignant Fantasy” and “Isolated Reality.” If they leaned into this part of their sound, I could imagine a future record that sounded like Uniform’s industrial-tinged hardcore, but in the meantime this is a cohesive and powerful record that doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve heard.