New full-length from this punk band out of Austin, TX. Our take: It’s been a whole five years since we last heard from Texas’s Breakout, when they released a pair of strong oi!-influenced hardcore EPs, one of which came to us courtesy of the great Grave Mistake Records. Six years is a long time in the hardcore scene, and indeed Breakout have changed a lot since those two EPs. While oi! is still a big influence, they’ve more or less dropped the hardcore from their sound. I hear traces of “New Age”-era Blitz on Say Hello, as well as the Business’s poppier moments. Rather than putting the melodic guitar lines front and center, though, Breakout have a denser sound, with two guitars, bass, drums, and vocals fighting for space in the mix. It reminds me of early Leatherface because it sounds chaotic on first listen, but (with some effort and attention) your ear parses out the criss-crossing melodic lines. Parts of Say Hello also remind me of bands like H.D.Q. and later Government Issue who worked to graft a pop sensibility onto hardcore, dropping its macho aggression without sacrificing the energy and intensity. While Say Hello doesn’t sound like any other record I can think of, try it if you like scrappy melodic hardcore.
