BIG LAUGH

 

As USDIY hardcore in the 2020s seems to be increasingly anchored by bands from the smaller "scenes" (don't ask me to justify this stance, it's just a vibe) labels like Unlawful Assembly are fast becoming go-to sources hot current hotness, much like Not Normal buoyed the upper Midwest scenes in the 2010s. Anyway, before SLOGAN BOY and INNUENDO  and NECRON 9....there was BIG LAUGH. Sure, the Consume Me LP on Rev is a monster, but this 2019 demo....this is basement hardcore. 

BIG LAUGH

ARMOR

 

They do shit different in Florida. You surely know this, but rarely have you heard a better example than this ARMOR demo from 2019. It's the hardcore that you love, just delivered with a murky, dangerous, desperate edge that makes it clear that ARMOR are....different. Mayhaps no better example than "Age Of Machine," a full on juggernaut of galloping fury that slides into the down low crouch and squirm of "Daydreaming" that puts the whole thing to bed. You know these sounds, you just don't know them like this. Not yet. 

ARMOR

======================

MORALLY STRAIGHT

 

In a way, MORALLY STRAIGHT came two years too late......but isn't that want makes them perfect? 2012's Normalitas is a master class in posi-Y2K fastcore, giving off serious LIFES HALT vibes with shades of 97A and some of the more 'crew iterations of the era. I wax nostalgic about this period every so often, choosing to remember the positives and skip the frustrations, and it's bands like this that really drive home how many great people and relationships came out of that time....bands like MORALLY STRAIGHT that help me remember that while hardcore rules, your hardcore (whatever era and/or genre you're a part of) rules more. Pretty sure these kids from Bandung are never going to forget the bonds they made in the early 2010s, and that makes this old white guy smile. 

NORMALITAS

RHINO

 

Filthy, grimy, gruff, squirmy hardcore street punk. The tempo shift that closes "Spinning" is worth the price of admission on its own but you're in luck; this is ten minutes of angst ridden gold. One self-titled demo from 2018 is all you get from Rhino, which seems appropriate for a band littered with members who seem obsessed (or content?) with projects who drop a handful of songs and then dissolve (CRYIN' HAND, BOOGER, ZIG ZAG, SMELTER, EJECUTADÓR, CURBED, PUTRID BOYS....this list just scratches the surface). At the risk of repeating myself - if the songs are this good, then fukk it. 

RHINO

OUR SPIRIT

 

Had a couple of drinks tonight with an old friend (one of my oldest) and for the first time in a long time we didn't talk about nostalgia. We talked about our bodies failing us and our friends failing us and us failing ourselves and we talked about love and we talked about loss and grief and we talked about death and we talked about punk bands and EDM DJs....we talked about his bands and my bands, but we didn't talk about our bands. Sometimes it's good to connect with someone you love and actually connect instead of rehashing as a means of small talk. Anyway....this band from Depok City hits like LIFES HALT and OUTLAST. Eight minutes of determined, positive 'core that makes me feel....well, nostalgic. It's hard to say the before times were better because we (I) didn't know what we didn't know....but fukk that innocence felt good, especially in retrospect. Enjoy and crank "Can't Get Ahead" while you get ahead today. 

OUR SPIRIT

 

HEDGEFUND

 

A dozen years after HEDGEFUND initially appeared on these pages comes their post script. I posted their self-titled debut in 2012 and Apreiron was snail mailed to me with the companion OHR // P.A.Y. shortly thereafter. I sat on both of them for the average lifespan of a trash panda before I unleashed the former on you a few years ago but still I waited for this one.....just because. "OHR" is a brutal sonic exercise, painful noise and deliberately manipulated sound while "P.A.Y." is an even rawer version of the band who hurt us with their two previous releases - howling, desperate. You're going to recognize the sounds here....but you'll never hear them the same again after you listen to them like this. This band was relatively short lived and I fear the waves they made were rather small, but damn this shit was good. 

OHR // P.A.Y.

PEACEMAKER

 

A few hours ago REALISTIC played our informal cassette release show at a weird and cool spot in Richmond, California. Our tape is short (less than ten minutes) and there was a discussion about whether or not duration should factor in when calculating sale price (because the production expenses for a cassette are essentially the same regardless of length). Craig wisely noted that if a record is good, then it didn't matter how many songs were on it or how long they were....you aren't complaining that the flawless 11 minute mini-LP isn't 17 minutes long....you're flipping that shit over and blasting it again. I agree, and these are my thoughts as I listen to PEACEMAKER's two song, four minute cassette for the one-hundredth time. Two songs....that's all we got, but maybe that's all we needed. 

SEE YOU DEAD // GREED

P.S.Y.W.A.R.

 

The midwestern united states is a special place, sonically speaking. N.O.T.A. could not have come from California. DEAD SILENCE and ANIMAL FARM were influenced by the "cool" scenes on the coast/s but they were so obviously products of their respective environments. You get an Outhouse in Kansas but never in D.C. or Boston. Enter P.S.Y.W.A.R., who straddle/d Denver and/or Kansas City, two of the largest and most influential enclaves in the middle of this country's middle section. Proximity (or lack thereof) breeds isolation and that makes for special sounds....like these sounds. We're talking early '10s USDIY squirms and reverb-laden spiked boots guttural hardcore with dark '80s Japanese influence...kinda. Because really this shit is the product of all of the influences with none of the meddlings, and that's what makes the good shit hit even harder. 

P.S.Y.W.A.R.

80HD

 

When 80HD dropped a few years ago, the hype was all about their energetic live shows and aerial explosions. People rushed to get to the internet to show the rest of the world how high they jumped, overfiltered grainy black and white photos with mullets and humans flying across phone screens. You never heard people talking about the music except that they were fast....but the shows were lit. Two mini LPs and five years after the demo and that first West Coast tour though, might I suggest revisiting the almost unparalleled sonic detonation that is 80HD's Demo 2021? The hype was real, and this blur of j/o riffs (hi Max) propelled by a hailstorm of galloping thumps doesn't merely stand on its own without the stench of sweat and beer interrupting the surge of Gen Z punks scrambling to get the perfect photo - the context breathes new life into the special kind of hardcore this band was creating. Perhaps 80HD is best listened to alone at 5:30am before the coffee is finished brewing - without context and without filters and without peer promotion. That's when you can hear 80HD and feel their fury unencumbered by the noise. Seven crucial, life affirming minutes on this cassette, re-experienced (by me) the way punk was not meant to be experienced; in the dark and in the flesh accompanied by nothing but a soft snore in the background and the waft of impending caffeine from the next room. Not gonna lie though, thee jumps did look sick.

80HD

MOONSCAPE // SMUT

 

It was almost ten years ago when I last posted MOONSCAPE, and I focused on their dark energy. That energy is arguably even more present on this SMUT split. Any if you want to talk about energy.....SMUT is everything you want in a punk. You've had them before but (if you're like me) it's been a minute and this split is a good reminder. "Thirst Trap" is the best punk song you'll hear today.

MOONSCAPE • SMUT

Worth noting that this tape sounds murky as shit in the best and punkest way imaginable.

647(F)

 

We've talked before about the lost late 1980s. Those kids who were young adolescents when their older siblings dragged them to FLAG and THREAT gigs were young adults at the end of the decade and...guess what? By the time hardcore wasn't cool and the dude from DEEP WOUND was a solo-ripping college indie darling, those kids were making some ripping under-the-radar hardcore music. It's just that hardcore wasn't cool anymore....except that it was. Hardcore was always cool. Still is. This recording was released as the brilliantly titled Cop Corpse 12" in 1988, but thankfully they made a tape too. 

SIX SICK SONGS

REFRACTIVE ERRORS

 

Five minutes. Five pieces of distorted, bombastic fastcore punctuated by the terrifying squirm of "Psychosis." There's really not much to note other than the brutally sinister and overtly dangerous energy that REFRACTIVE ERRORS puts into their sound - even the bits with hooks (I'm talking "Useless And Consuming" here) sound like Satan themself has taken over the songwriting for ADOLESCENTS or some shit....and then it's just over. And you realize you haven't really been breathing. 

REFRACTIVE ERRORS

PITBUL

Six minutes of uncompromising hardcore fury to start your week.....you aren't going to find very many bands in this millennia that hit like PITBUL. The whole thing is perfect, but then you listen to "Mental Prison" and start over because you know you missed something. This is everything you need today. Trust me. I wouldn't lie to you. 

DEMO 2020

ASSAULT

 

The third ASSAULT tape that got rescued from that antique mall in SLO last year, 1900's self-titled swan song shows Orcutt's finest still ripping through SoCal hardcore-at-the-beach burners....but they are just a little more "mature," you know? There are a few meandering melodic bits and a couple of times when I (almost) think I hear rockabilly vibes. Vocals are the weird point here (especially the back-ups) until you realize that it's their ever so slight off-ness that really helps the band stick the landing. ASSAULT weren't perfect, even though listening to "No Morals" and "In Between" will make you wonder why they still remain (relatively) undiscovered.  

ASSAULT

VENGEANGE

 

Instantly infectious Jakarta punk with OBSERVERS-level hooks. Vocals are forceful, leads are flawless, hooks are endless....it's just a brilliant recording and I want to blast the chorus of the title track on repeat, because The System Doesn't Work.

STAGNANT CIRCLE

MOTHERFUCKER TERESA

 

Fierce. Dissonant. Shrill. Lumbering. Passionate. Intense.

...I almost feel like a single word sentences could accurately describe Denver's MOTHERFUCKER TERESA,  but then it would start a debate about hyphenated compounds like "Anti-Cop" and acronyms like "PC" because both are essential components to their composition and sound. Nine dual-vocal hardcore songs that sound like they were banged out in someone's mom's garage - and I mean that in the best possible way. Choice cuts include the damaged "Me & Mitch McConnell In A Dark Alley" and their brilliant interpretation of BODY COUNT's most famous track....you know the one, right? This is Covid-era hardcore that feels absolutely timeless. 

OLD NEWS IS STILL NEWS

WHO WILL BE NEXT

 

Yeah....more Indonesian hardcore. This shit sounds like it was ripped out of the early '00s "old school meets emotional melodic hardcore riffs" subgenre. Like, you're gonna know what I mean when you hear the shit, I swear you will. Dan Gatewood would (probably) love this shit, I can see him rocking back and forth patting an open hand on his chest and smiling until he thrust a fist in the air and mouthed the chorus to the title track "Straight Edge Today." I miss that dude, but I miss a lot of things and alas I digress..... First half of Dari Sini Kita Mulai was recorded in 2014 but the other three tracks were recorded seven years earlier and are a touch more on the Y2K tip. It's just twelve minutes all in, but the shit takes you on a fukkn journey and I am (still) here for it. 

DARI SINI KITA MULAI

SCUMMY AND THE SCUMS

 

How many Covid projects were there.....? Rhetorical question of course, because there were countless Covid projects across all genres that achieved various levels of realization before things returned to whatever "normal" was in 2022 (or so). SCUMMY AND THE SCUMS fit the bill - a deceptively named project since the entire band seems to be composed of someone called Mr. Scummy. T(he)y produced five glorious minutes of politically charged and relevant (in a "time-and-place" sense) hardcore and offered it to the world in 2021. The rest of us motherfuckers should have listened to "Where's Joe?" but then again...it wouldn't have made a difference. Aside from the people dying, Covid times were some of the best months of my adult life. The future was uncertain but we had the moment. 

SCUMMY AND THE SCUMS

NULA

 

It's hard to communicate and/or quantify our connection to this...thing. Yesterday a dude I work with talked about a tour in the '90s when he was stuck in the Lower 48 with The Merchandise while The Band (he was touring with) played a few shows in Canada and he snuck in a CRUDOS show in Boston while he was waiting for them to come back. Then tonight I was listening to Numero Group's Miracle Year record and feeling sorry for myself for never getting to see The Best Band Ever even though I have been lucky enough to see some really fukkn important bands. 

Anyway, NULA are so far outside of the above mentioned realms that it's not even worth discussing. Furious, raging '90s DIY punk from another world - listen to "Žrtve" and "Demokracija" and tell me the shit isn't important....just like CRUDOS and DÜ. Listen to "Anarhija" and tell me punk doesn't rule everything. There you go. That's it. Punk rules. 

POBJEDIMO LAŽ

EVALUATE WHAT YOU TOLERATE

 

At the risk of repeating myself, the early '10s in the Bay Area were truly special time (much like the early '00s if we're being honest). There are bands here who formed the foundation for some truly great gigs (ACRYLICS, MOZART, MASS ARREST), bands I had never heard of before listening to this comp (MARRAIGE + CANCER, REVOLUTION BUMMER, HIGH ANXIETY, WARP), bands I was familiar with but who were outside of my general orbit (SPACE TOILET, PREENING, BUTANNA). Throw in MONSTER SQUAD, STREET EATERS and NOPES, all of whom are still active a decade (plus) later and you have a magical time capsule that is very clearly about so much fucking more than a few killer songs. But speaking of killer songs, DID IS DEAD, FATTYCAKES & THE PUFF PASTRIES and MABS deliver three of the killerest cuts you're going to hear today. 

EVALUATE WHAT YOU TOLERATE VOLUME 2