★★★★★
Integrity's first American show in almost two years was centered around their mid-period releases, including Walpurgisnacht, and the focus on the release and its brothers couldn't have been more fitting: As the band storm onto the stage, opening with "Vocal Test," Baltimore's Soundstage Theatre broke out into a huge circle pit/chant, with the audience screaming along in unison to frontman Dwid Hellion's wordless howls...
- www.punknews.org
2015-09-21
★★★★★
Generally speaking, Integrity's second LP, 1995's Systems Overload is considered the point where they fully severed themselves from the hardcore scene of the time. Released four years (an epoch in punk-time) after their debut, 1991's For Those Who Fear Tomorrow, the Systems Overload LP found the band embracing full on metal songs, warping weird, creepy samples directly in the middle of songs, and abandoning the direct, and often simplistic, subject material of "traditional" hardcore in lieu of...
- www.punknews.org
2015-06-11
★★★★★
Quite impressively, Integrity's "7th Revelation: Beyond the Realm of the VVitch" (yes, the band writes their "w's" like Visigoths and it is totally cool) showcases what was great about the band in their classic lineup, what is great about them now, and just how far out they are on a single side of a seven-inch...
- www.punknews.org
2014-03-11
★★★★★
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em," frontman Dwid Hellion announced to the audience at the Baltimore A389 Bash on January 18, 2014. Integrity then broke into what is probably the first full live rendition of "Armenian Persecution" off the classic Systems Overload album. That one moment exemplified what makes Integrity soar so far above (or in their minds, craw so far below) their contemporaries...
- www.punknews.org
2014-01-25
★★★★★
Dwid Hellion is an almost comically dark personality. For the last 25 years, Hellion has served as the head yawper and sole constant member of Integrity, an act that helped pioneer metalcore by stripmining punk rock's firmament and flooding it with the influence of doom, thrash, and psychedelic rock. Their sound has been inestimably influential, helping to fork the path that bands such as Converge, Hatebreed, and a million others have since traveled...
- pitchfork.com
2013-06-26
★★★★★
Integrity formed in 1988, half a decade before Hatebreed. It's a shame, then, that many listeners will categorize the opening riff of the elder band's ninth full-length, , as a Hatebreed riff. If that sounds worrisome, Integrity fans can relax knowing that said riff in question sounds like Jasta and co. before they decided to cater to the lowest common denominator...
- exclaim.ca
2013-06-25
★★★★★
Anticipation was high as Integrity took the stage of the Ottobar in Baltimore. Because band founder Dwid Hellion lives in a remote cabin in Holland, the group rarely play US shows, so their headlining set at A389 Record's Ninth Anniversary Bash was that much more significant on January 18, 2013.
Integrity in 2013 is a much different band than their original formation from the late 80s...
- www.punknews.org
2013-01-19
★★★★★
Integrity is getting rawer and weirder. Although the group suggested their return to form on last year's "comeback" LP, The Blackest Curse, on Thee Destroy+ORR, the band sinks deeper into both their low-end rumblings and doomsday musings. Composed of six new tracks and seven others which were previously released on EPs and seven-inches, Thee Destroy+ORR comprises all of the material that the group has recorded with guitarist Robert Orr...
- www.punknews.org
2011-09-05
★★★★★
"For those sick and tired of the sleek production and tame riffs of modern metallic hardcore, 'The Blackest Curse' is the vicious cure that will snap some sense into those willing to listen." Isn't it funny how one band gets popular, while the band that influenced them is stuck in obscurity? Metallica got big, while Diamond Head was a small blip in the metal radar...
- www.metalunderground.com
2010-12-21