Hey Project 86 I’ve been listening to you guys for 16 years! I always loved Truthless heroes when I was a teen it seemed to speak to me back then and even more so these days. The spy hunter is still on of my number one favourites I had no idea it was supposed to be on the Truthless heroes album. Thank you for all the music and all the memories!

P86 - I have been following you since the late 90's. I can remember driving over an hour to see you play with POD and Blindside, I believe in a church gymnasium in a small town in PA. I had the opportunity to rub elbows with Andrew and crew after the show and the rest is history. Thruthless Heroes was and still is one of my favorite albums you have released. Keep on keeping on and staying true to yourself. I have proudly help crowd fund at least 3 of your albums because your work speaks to me and helped me through some dark adolescent times. I hope that once our world returns to normal and we are no longer held captive by the fear of some you tour again and make your way to the great state of Ohio.

Andrew, I had no idea that was what I was listening to in 2002. That was about 10 years, before I started figuring out the truth after digging into Revelations, and many other items. You're lyrics were almost like future telling. I listen to that album all the time now, and it's so obvious what you were saying now. You are amazing, and the fact you are still keeping this alive is just awesome! God Bless you!! - Chris

I've been a fan since I was a teenager, yesterday was my 33rd birthday. There is so much I used to listen to that I've grown out of, but even after all these years I STILL LOVE YOUR STUFF. Thank you for being so excellent.

I was transitioning from middle to high school when Truthless Heroes came out. DBL was my gateway drug to your music but Truthless Heroes will always hold a special place in my heart, a kind of coming-of-age album for me as I moved into my teenage years, frustrated and angry at all the hypocrisy and fakeness surrounding me, and in your music I found the honesty I was looking for, and the aggression to match.

I will always love every album you’ve made in its own way. At 32, you are still my favorite band, and I’m glad that I’ve been able to take this journey alongside you for what it’s worth!

Long time Fan. First Saw you guys at Cornerstone 98. Back when Andrew rocked a fro. I am now 37. I Still to this day tear up when I listen to/blast your self titled album Project 86. That Album changed me forever. I've always wished you guys could remaster and/or remake that Album with your modern day nuances and give it a heavier, more quality sound. I have imagined it in my head for years. Six Sirens was and is my favorite, however every single one of those songs on the album is absolutely amazing. I believe that would make one heck of a final, final chapter. Bring it around full circle to where it all began.
Glad to see you guys still crushing the content.
Take care,
Danny

Honest Villains.

Now here is an album I have not thought about in a long time. Hell this is a band I haven't thought about in a long time. And is it even the same band I remember? It's easy to gatekeep now that Schwab has long since embraced his inner Trent Renzor. That he and he alone stands as the only incarnation of Project 86 that remains constant throughout its entirely.

But for all those Team Hate, Forum 9 Name, OG message board purge survivors, Project 86 is Andrew Schwab, Randy Torres, Alex Albert, and Steven Dail.

This was their third album together.

And it ruined everything.

The high coming off of Drawing Black Lines was ecstatic. The album was an intoxicatingly heavy back and forth trade of bass and guitar riffs accented with thunderous drums and quintessential for the era growls and melodic vocal swings.

You could make so many badass Dragonball Z music videos to this album in high school.

...shut up.

But when the big contract was signed with Atlantic for the true coming out party for the band with their third album, something fell flat. Interest in the band had grown over the last few months. It culminated I believe when the band was featured on the Blair Witch Project 2: Book of Shadows Soundtrack.

I remember going to see this movie having already bought the soundtrack. Why wouldn't I? It had fricken Project 86! I remember going to the theater and hearing all the other tracks on the album while the weirdly meta movie drolled on. After an admittedly good disturbing ending to an otherwise unremarkable movie, the credits rolled.

No Project 86.

The credits continued.

Nothing.

Finally the end of the credits arrive and they list all the songs featured in the movie.

Then I hear it. The guitar all alone. It's P.S. Track 4 from Drawing Black Lines! On the big screen!!!

It's over in just a few seconds. The screen goes blank. The curtain falls.

I was the only one left in the theater by then.

-

Truthless Heroes is an oddity in Project 86's discography. It's far better than say Rival Factions, but was seemingly treated much worse when it came out. Perhaps, it is that by time Rival Factions came about, when the 4 musicians many of us had always known as Project 86 began to grow apart, the band had essentially grown a new audience. One that really wasn't tied to any expectations of Drawing Black Lines 2.

I didn't love Truthless Heroes when it first came out. I have nostalgia for it as I do with most things from that time in my life. But I was disappointed initially. I can't say for sure why all these years later, but I know I wasn't the only one.

To me there are a few things that really sets this track list apart from the original. The first obvious is the inclusion of Spy Hunter. Why it wasn't originally included is baffling. Maybe if it had been, it could have been preformed on Attack of The Show years before Andrew had to preform it apparently sick as a dog.

Second is the omission of the 4 "commercial" tracks and Salem's Suburbs. The commerical
tracks I do believe disrupted the flow of the original album and understand their omission. However they as a combined intermission song after say Team Black I feel works. Also Salem's Suburbs probably would have been fine as a track 5 follow up to Another Boredom Movement.

Third is how all the "harder" songs are seemingly pushed to the front on the album. The album starts heavier than previously possible with Spy Hunter and then slowly, song by song, mellows out with spikes of energy near the end. Hollow Again follows the "track 3 is the single" rule from the late 90's early 2000's. And the album ends with what should have always been the final track, Soma. Which to this day I believe should be the final encore song to whatever Project 86 show Andrew decides to be his last.

The OG track list, while perhaps sticking to an overarching lyric narrative, suffers greatly in that the first 9 tracks are far too similar in tone and pace. This new arrangement both bolsters the seemingly mellower tracks and accents the heavily faster familiar rifts pre-2002 Project 86 fans fell in love with.

Would the world have been different if this is how TH was originally present to the masses? Probably not. But 18 years of hindsight later, this version of Truthless Heroes is just as relevant as it was way back then.

It wasn't anywhere near as beloved as DBL, but it probably is the most complete album Project 86 has ever made. Or at least it is now.

Truthless Heroes was and still is my favorite album! I never understood how others didn't enjoy it! I love concept albums and this was by far one of the best written - Knives to the Future comes in right behind it! Seriously though, Truthless Heroes was the P86 I fell in love with!

It honestly kinda bums me out to hear that you guys are not happy with how Truthless Heroes turned out. It’s my favorite P86 album and I love everything about it, I even wrote a paper in school about the song Soma - that song spoke to me in so many ways. Hollow Again may have been the song that turned me onto post-hardcore as a genre and Caught in the Middle was played over and over again on my Sony disc-player. I’m hoping one day I’ll see Truthless Heroes released on vinyl and jam out to it again and experience the nostalgia. I do like the other albums but TH is an album not to be forgotten.