My jaw dropped when I heard ILLITHED for the first time a few weeks ago. They had a relatively short run in the late '90s with just two releases in their catalog so it's easy to see how they eluded discovery for so long (plus they were from Indiana - nothing against Indiana, but lots of stuff from there flies under the radar). Pogrom is a serious blow to the senses though, and it's not often that a blast from an unknown past hits this hard right out of the gate. It's from 1998, so the surge of heavy, powerful,"fully realized" hardcore was already overtaking the scrappy and earnest mid decade DIY sounds, but ILLITHED were holding fast and injecting that new energy into their sound while still embracing their Midwest basement foundation (I'm just assuming they played in basements, because it makes sense). Guitars are crunchy and loose, songs erratically incorporate elements of heavy chug but never sound like anything other than a determined, dirty DIY band, and the vocals (all of 'em) are the embodiment of '90s emotional hardcore. This band hits like ANIMAL FARM, ECONOCHRIST, DEMISE...this is the good shit.
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