Cholera have come a long way since their début. Formed under the name Hades, the band were Church of Fuck’s first signing back in 2012. After some line-up changes the band reformed under the name Cholera and released their ‘Egotism’ EP later in the year. Now after a year of further fine-tuning and another member change the band return with their most powerful and focussed record yet. This is ‘Plagiarised Hope’ and it’s an absolute beast of a hardcore EP.
This new 7” EP is all over in under 11 minutes and it packs as much ferocity and anguish you possibly could into those 11 minutes. The band clearly draw influence from bands like Full of Hell, Trap Them and even Church of Fuck alumni like Esoteric Youth and Iced Out. This is a huge melting pot of hardcore, black metal and power violence that quite simply assaults the senses from the get-go.
One of the highlights comes in the form of ‘Anonymous’ which manages to cram all these ideas into a single song with a horrible, noise-ridden outro to round everything off nicely (or horribly depending on how you look at it).
Cholera clearly appreciate the need for a solid riff to bolster their absolutely frantic playing style and songs like ‘Raped’ succeed in offering a real neck-bothering riff that punches you in the gut Entombed-style.
Other great inclusions come with the wonderfully blackened tremolo-picking in ‘Swelling’ and ‘Eyeless’ which definitely showcase the Esoteric Youth influences on the band’s sound. Hardcore fans will have a lot to like on this record and Cholera sound tighter and more accomplished than ever.
If anything the only real negative we can throw at the record is that the UK is home to a considerably large number of these so called ‘Entombed-core’ bands and despite Cholera’s obvious proficiency for writing brilliant hardcore songs they aren’t really offering anything new and it would be easy to confuse them with bands like Razoreater or End Reign.
So Cholera aren’t particularly original but so what? ‘Plagiarised Hope’ is an absolutely stunning 7” that takes all the best parts of modern hardcore and delivers an immensely satisfying slab of chaos. If you have any interest in the genre then Cholera make an excellent starting point and ‘Plagiarised Hope’ showcases a hugely accomplished sound that highlights the best parts of the scene. Cholera have never sounded so strong.
8/10
Cholera’s ‘Plagiarised Hope’ is out this month on Church of Fuck and Holy Ground Records.
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