Pro-Pain-20 Years Of Hardcore

AFM Records
2011

Not so much a greatest hits package seeing as Pro-Pain has already had three of them. Rather this new collection gathers four new tracks, four re-recorded tracks, cover songs and a fourteen-song live set filmed in the Czech Republic. The DVD that comes along with the disc contains over 90 minutes of additional material. This includes live footage of several full concerts, fan-filmed footage and various other goodies. Fans of Pro-Pain will certainly want to invest in this set as it does offer lots of extras. Formed in 1991 (out of the ashes of the Crumbsuckers) Pro-Pain started out playing metallic hardcore. Like Prong (another fellow metallic hardcore band) the band's sound would evolve over time. While Prong adapted more of an industrial style Pro-Pain went on to incorporate elements of groove metal and thrash. While I loved them when their sound was more urban in nature I lost touch with their music as they adapted a more care-free attitude. While this release might just be a must-have for die hard fans (it is well crafted and offers quite the bang for your buck) the days of Pro-Pain being a serious threat (hardcore assault wise) are long gone. As such if you love where Pro-Pain has been and where they are now I can recommend this one. If not it isn't a bad package by itself it is just that it stands as a sad reminder of what happens to far too many bands (especially hardcore ones) when they start playing around with too many different genres.