HOW IT ENDS: Discography

These guys referred to themselves as the heaviest band in the world when they first got together in 2001. I don't think they were far off.

I was lucky enough to see How It Ends in its original form once at the Bunion Bowl in Baltimore, MD in 2001. Bad Luck 13 played and beat Jesus with a barbed wire baseball bat while shooting roman candles into the faces of their fans, but that is a story for another time.

No one at the fest would give How It Ends a chance at the time. The outwardly "nu-metal" apprearance of the vocalist played second in the crowd's disapproval only to the fact that they were not covering Dysphoria songs (their pre-cursor band). Sadly, these were two rather typical sentiments of the hardcore scene at the time. If you didn't dress the hardcore part or if you tried doing something different musically (or in How It Ends' case, both), you weren't going to get any sort of recognition.

While I was always "into" Dysphoria, I felt a new level of intensity within How It Ends that never caught my attention in the years of their former project. The new tuning to G Sharp, the new vocalist, the emphasis on the live sound; this combination could not be topped in my eyes. Not many people had the chance to see this original line-up, however, due to their complete reformation after the release of their first full length.

Replacing the original vocalist and second guitarist were Gravity (of Dysphoria) and Dave Heck (of Palehorse), respectively. A more traditional hardcore sound was taken up for the second full length, Beloved, and while it is every bit as innovative and heavy as the initial release, I remain partial to the original recordings solely due to it being more my style ... and by "my style" I mean that it reminds me of Disembodied.

(Editor's Note: The break approximately three minutes into Dying Eyes can not be topped).

DOWNLOAD