Hatefest

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Hatefest

By Wes Flexner

Hate ComFest? Community, peace, love, understanding and respect got you down? Or do you just hate hippies? Hatebreed might be your vaccine for the granola influenza.

In place of dope-smoking, dreadlocked topless girls, you'll find angry ladies holding straight-edge-X-signifying hands with their muscle-bound boyfriends. (On that note, do not go to a Hatebreed show to meet women, unless you like to fight huge males.)

There are no drum circles. There isn't a stage powered by solar energy. And no offbeat dancing to jam bands — just grown men punching the floor and screaming along to the New Haven, Connecticut, band's anthems.

What: Hatebreed

When: Friday, June 27

Where: Newport Music Hall, Campus

Web: myspace.com/hatebreed

This doesn't mean the adrenaline-charged metalcore combo is completely insensitive. They feel their fans' need for aggression. For example, take the lyrics from "Bound to Violence," in which Jamey Jasta hugs their disgruntled bro-core fan base with screams of "Bound, bound, bound to violence/ gagged, gagged, gagged by pain/ drowned, drowned in self-regret."

Jasta isn't just the therapist of the meathead catharsis — as host of MTV2's Headbanger's Ball, he's truly the voice of his people. By putting out five albums since 1996, including the 2006 hit Supremacy, his band's earned respect from tough-guy hardcore types, too.

June 26, 2008