THE UNEXPECTED

From all of the reviews I have been able to track down of THE UNEXPECTED's sole EP, these New Jersey miscreants didn't exactly take the world by storm, but hearing this demo today makes my hair stand on end.  The mid tempo dirge "Gimme Some Weed" seems like it is absolutely struggling to not take of and run away at breakneck speed, the drummer keeps awkwardly picking up the tempo and then reigning himself in.  The guitar leads that sneak into every song make me think that the axeman from UNEXPECTED probably went on to join a shitty metal band at some point in the 80s, but his work on these tracks is pure hardcore fury. "Bad Habits" and "Hay Hoe Ha" appear on the band's 1984 EP (and they might be the two weakest tunes on the demo, which could explain the ho-hum reviews), and they had some killer cuts on the BCT Hardcore Amerika tape that Enterruption was kind enough to reissue a few years back.  "Pro Of Society" is the absolute highlight of the tape, 1:04 of pure fucking hate and frustration that explode into machine gun drums and the line "is this true? / is this life? / is this society?!?!" ...what more do you need? I'm guessing 1983 for this demo, as the versions of the EP and comp tracks are a little dirtier (dirtier means earlier, right?), I think I'm going to drop a postcard in the mail to the address on the tape, it was probably some dude's mom's house, and maybe she still lives there.  Stay tuned...

THE UNEXPECTED