GORILLAXMONSOON spend the first 90 seconds of this split with a one riff intro that creates a mountain of tension that you just know is going to come crumbling down on you, and even when it does you aren't quite prepared. After an intro that features a gutsy five second silence and a fist clenching yeeoowl, they launch into five tracks of killer 'crew incarnated as devastating heavy hardcore. The breakdowns, the backups, the chugs, the determined falter in the vocals...it's all there, but GORILLAXMONSOON are none of the posi hardcore that those elements might imply. Pissed, desperate and brutally honest, these five tracks are real. And then GORILLAXMONSOON hand the torch to their neighbors in VEXED and the reality gets dark in a hurry. That desperation fades into depression, and the grey area comes out in the music as much as the vocals - which is saying a lot, because the vocals give me chills. Five minutes of crushing, blasting hardcore/pv sandwiched in between four minutes of painfully slow riffing, the VEXED side of this tape is a really dark counterpart to the already dark flip...none of these kids are fucking around, and I would love to hear more from both. And for those keeping track of the places where all the good bands come from, GORILLAXMONSOON are from Chico, California, and VEXED are from up the road in Redding.
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