Comments (0) Best Metal/Hardcore Band - 2009
Poison the Well
Is Poison the Well a surprise pick? No, but it's time to give credit where it is long overdue. Frontman Jeffrey Moreira reps Hialeah (hard), and the rest of the members hail from towns across South Florida. Poison the Well sprang from the same fabled anything-goes, late-'90s South Florida hardcore/punk scene as fellow success stories Shai Hulud and New Found Glory. PTW has reached the same cult level of underground/overground success (even releasing one disc on a major, Atlantic). But unlike its peers, the band never switched its original home base. No, Poison the Well deserves props for relentlessly touring the world, playing to frothing American and European crowds, and then returning home to joltingly sunny South Florida. What's more, PTW puts the same level of balls-to-the-wall energy into its decidedly more intimate hometown gigs, playing for rabid longtime fans at places such as Churchill's Pub. Further, the band has continued a path of out-there musical innovation, melding its hardcore roots into spaced-out, experimental workouts that play as well on a home stereo as at a show. The band's latest album, The Tropic Rot, was released digitally this past May through Ferret Music. The physical release is this summer, and it comes an impressive ten years after the group's debut full-length, The Opposite of December. Happy anniversary, guys.
