BAD HIPPY

 

You ever listen to something and feel like it's probably best if you never meet the humans responsible for it? That's BAD HIPPY. Because in the trailer park you might have that one kid who fucks with HATEBREED and that other kid who drinks too much and wants to sound like EYEHATEGOD and those are the only people the dude with the DYSTOPIA back patch can find to make music...well there's the guy who just hangs out on his porch doing whippets all day - no one really knows what kind of music that dude listens to but he has a drum kit so fuck it. Combine that energy and you have....well, you certainly have something. This shit is terrifying, raw DIY punk with all kinds of outsider energy culminating with the exhausting 10+ minute "Die Dogfucker," a wholly unrealized epic that could have changed the world. If this were a different world. 

ENTHRONED

LIMITED OPTIONS

 

A few weeks ago I was eating a burrito in the Mission and this nice dude casually slid a few tapes across the tabla as we chatted between scoops of salsa verde. He had a little tale to tell about each of them, but honestly I don't remember what he said about LIMITED OPTIONS. And once I jammed this think I didn't need to hear what anyone else said about the band because I was obsessing on what I was feeling while listening to themfor the first time. Fortunately, subsequent listens only increased my connection to the sounds so much that I don't even think about burritos when I listen.....and I think about burritos a lot. This is perfectly executed Y2K fast/thrash/hardcore that sounds not at all like a rehash of anything. The 1-2 punch of "Still Fighting" into "Tired" is one of the most powerful things I've blasted in 2026, this tape is a master clinic.

LIMITED OPTIONS

BIG

 

A while back, someone casually mentioned that they thought BIG were the hottest new hardcore band in the Bay Area. I noted this observation, and remembered the drummer for my old band telling me about his new band called....BIG. Eric beat the shit out of the buskets in STERILE MIND and he was constantly involved in the construction and evolution of our songs. I imagined that translating that energy and focus to guitar would probably lead to something I needed, but it was months (years?) before I saw BIG in the flesh when REALISTIC played with them in a San Francisco batting cage (it's a thing) earlier this year. I was right - that casual mentioner was right. BIG are advanced hardcore. Maximum intensity delivering every micro-hook you never knew you needed. Metallic breakdowns, pop punk sensibilities and occasional indie vibes (I swear a BLOC PARTY energy in "Fear & Hunger") plus driving hi-NRG squirm punk and it all sounds like the hardcore that you didn't know you were missing until you realize you (finally) have it. Anyway.....shit is good. 

DANCE MUSIC

RICHARD SCARY

 

Absolutely fucking demented hollow tupa-mania from Southern California. Alien squirms and dark alley beatings punctuated by bursts of savage raw hardcore punk insanity. "Rot" is the closer, and I was so fukkn bummed when I realized that when it was over...it was over. Good shit. 

HELL IS A PLACE ON EARTH 

THE STASI

 

Damn if this doesn't embody the misanthropic abrasive old school USHC of the 2010s.

Six minutes of honest hardcore. 
You're welcome.

THE STASI

 

END YOU

 

I listened to this from start to finish without typing a single word. Then I listened again intending to start writing as it played....but I didn't type a single word. I mean, I know the sounds and I know more or less where they come from. They are familiar, but my interest is intent and deliberate as it would be if I were hearing something I could not contextualize. This is like listening to a modern abrasive record recorded by someone who was introduced to hardcore through SOAD and DEFTONES but quickly made their way to WEEDEATER, BORN AGAINST  and UNSANE (not in that order) without ever forgetting that their older sister loaned them a WHITE ZOMBIE tape when they were in sixth grade. END YOU sounds like none of this and hits like all of it and....and now maybe you see why I keep listening to try to figure out what's going on and where it came from. When "Equinox" starts I remember watching KARMA TO BURN in a coffee shop in Kansas in 1995 but then I really don't know what to think after that. "Alt Delete" is mid-paced hardcore terror at its finest, "Copstomp" is as brutally intense as the title suggests except that the sonic violence is intelligent (because stomping cops is smart, apparently) and "The Call" is a dark and deliberate modern sludge/hardcore masterpiece.  It's not that this recording is all over the place; this shit is everywhere all at once and its overwhelming. The "It Gazes Back" closes the tape and honestly I feel like I need to go back to the beginning. END YOU was (is?) a one-person recording project, and it almost makes you wonder why full bands even bother. Repeat listens highly recommended - this one just gets better and more interesting.

AIMLESS DREAD: A DISSOCIATIVE EVENT IN TWELVE PARTS

===========================
Unrelated: REALISTIC is recording today. It will sound nothing like this, but it's not supposed to. 

DESINTEGRATIÓN VIOLENTA

 

You've crossed paths with the La Bestia EP that came out a few years ago; with heavyweight tastemakers like Roachleg, Unlawful Assembly and Static Age involved you certainly had the opportunity. But a few years beforethat Unlawful Assembly was a Midwest upstart label whose releases were famous for disappearing the day they were released - there were weren't many of us, but there's weren't many copies to go around either, so you had to be on your shit. A project related to MURO, ALAMBRADA and ATAQUE ZERØ was bound to raise eyebrows, and the self-titled Desintegratión Violenta did not disappoint. Sinister, raw Colombia tupa-punk tinged with DBeat and little tasty sprinkles of ANNIHILATION TIME for good measure, my jaw dropped when I popped this tape in the deck - five years later and I'm no less amazed. "Anormal" is the choice cut for my ears but literally every cut here will make you move the way only real hi-energy punk can. La Bestia came three years later, one can only hope they've got they've got another offering up their sleeve because this shit....? Ooof. 

DESINTEGRATIÓN VIOLENTA

THEIST

 

Different presentations of these songs are on the THEIST tape I posted a few years ago, but I enjoyed revisiting this absolute bulldozer so much that I figured there must be some would-be interested parties who may have missed out the first time around. A glorious amalgamation of epic stadium crust and crushing doomsludge...and then they go fast, and when they go fast I suggest you strap in. The closer "At The End Of The Maze" probably captures all of the power most effectively (makes sense that it's the closer then, no?), building on everything from the stoner grooves that open "Antidogma" to the breakneck epic DBeat assault of "Endless Lust" and the atmospheric interludes "Aeon" and "Arche" that separate this release from their other self titled cassette.
Here I am in 2026 listening to a recording from 2014...wishing it was 2003. 

THEIST

VIOLENCE OF CRUSDAE

 

A message to virtually every North American and European punk: You will never know the true depth and reach of so-called Third World Hardcore. If you're looking, then you will find another new (to you) band every time you take a breath....and if you want more, then every one of those new (to you) bands will lead you down a new (to you) path where you will open more doors and find even more new (to you) bands and scenes. But the parentheticals are important here - because these bands and scene exist outside of the first world DIY structure even though the influences are often apparant (and sometimes blatant). Enter VIOLENCE OF CRUSADE from Kediri, some ten hours roughly east of Jakarta. They left us with a small handful of deadly metallic hardcore releases form the mid-2010s and 2014's Dead might be my favorite. Dark and intense hardcore that leans on technical melodies and uses stadium crust tendencies without ever falling into the subgenre's trappings. "Dead//Suicide" into the dreadfully intense "Balada Rimba Malapetaka" (roughly translated: "Ballad Of The Jungle Disaster" so draw your own conclusions and sit with that shit) will make your hair stand on end but the whole damn thing is incredible and it just makes me think: "Shit - there's more where this came from?!?" And yes, there's always more. 

DEAD

PAPER GANGSTER

 

I've probably told the tale before, but in 1996 FUCKFACE were quasi-stranded with HICKEY at the FAT DAY house in Somerville, Massachusetts for the better part of a week with no shows. We were well taken care of and the show at the end of that week was one for the ages (Matt was green, enough said), but I made a mix tape in their living room...and that's the connection here. We were light years removed from the tough hardcore scene (see also our show with UNDERTOW, UNBROKEN and JASTA 14 in New Haven on the 1994 tour, and the handful of shows we did with BURST OF SILENCE....lest I digress). These dudes were in New England, and 'that kind' of hardcore was everywhere. And the Firestorm EP was in their living room, and that record made it onto the mix tape and that was really the first time I had spent any time with this shit. 1996 - wild, right? 
Anyway, PAPER TIGER are from Depok, not far from Jakarta, and this 2004 recording takes me back to that living room except that Season Of Destruct is undeniably more interesting and innovative.
This isn't 'my kind' of hardcore (whatever that means), but try to tell me that "New Empire" doesn't resonate and I'll tell you you're wrong. Then we can talk about "Behind The System" and "Hope" and "Civil War" and then I'm going to start to wonder if straight edge groove metal is my new favorite genre because....well, because of PAPER TIGER.

SEASON OF DESTRUCT

UNIT X

 

You tell me you know a band called UNIT X and I'm gonna tell you that I think I know what they sound like. Well....that's what I thought when I picked up this tape. And I wasn't wrong. We're talking ten minutes of smart Y2K fastcore and classic SXE 'core and a little bit of that less-posi energy to keep listeners honest (think LACK OF INTEREST sharing a bill with LIFES HALT). The shit hits the spot.

WAR ON SELF, WAR ON EVERYTHING

ARMED HOGS

 

Drop everything and blast the fukk out of this demo. Jakarta's ARMED HOGS have just changed the game by following the damn rules - ripping USHC played with precision and passion. This hits like when Brandon handed me the DIRECT CONTROL demo 20+ years ago.... all of the sounds were familiar but somehow the shit just clicked differently. Though the sound is decidedly more unhinged, this feels like that felt; if I told you this was a new supergroup from North Carolina or Richmond you wouldn't flinch and you'd wonder which sonic archaeologists had carefully reconstructed a perfect hardcore recording - then there's "Bootlicker" and it's like street punk on Ritalin then the slide at the 0:24 mark of "Strangled" (it's the little things - it really is the little things) and then it's fucking over and you're scrambling to get back to the beginning so you can really listen this time instead of mind-moshing your way through your Thursday. 

ARMED HOGS

HUGE PRICK

 

Sorry about yesterday, my friends. I was having a moment and I was happy that Tom T. Hall cared about me when I was twelve. So nostalgia today, no context and no emotions....just six minutes of high voltage sonic damage from HUGE PRICK. I never saw this band, but I hope they were a gloriously hot mess. Damn this shit is good - this is not giving a fuck hardcore. 

PSYCHO CHAIR

SCRAPYARD

 

No bullshit, just hardcore street punk from the North American continent. 
This tape is from 2024, and there's a full length that came out like two weeks ago that is even better even though and/or because there are some butt-rock leads. Shit is like NYHC and THIN LIZZY. They released it on CD, which is pretty retro.

SCRAPYARD

CULVERT CORPSE

 

CULVERT CORPSE is everything that I want. Raw, yearning, chaotic, oppressive skate punk masquerading as primitive black metal and/or vice versa, recorded to present like a forced march to hell by way of a tornado. The recording takes the Everything Louder Than Everything Else ethos to dizzying heights (or depths) and drenches everything in a tsunami of vocal distortion, making this the six most exhausting minutes of your day...time to throw in the towel, kids. Life is over.

DEMO 3

REALISTIC

 

This is a band I'm in called REALISTIC. Alex, B and I started doing this (very slowly) after the Conquest Fro Death LP came out and the band was finally done. Adult schedules and toilet life made progress and productivity virtually impossible, but we recorded a sub-seven minute demo at House Of Faith in 2023....then came nothing. That's until Lory (RAD, FALSE FLOWERS, SICK BURN) stepped in and gave us life. So we're a band now, and we have a demo. 

REALISTIC: DEMO 2025

===================================
Speaking of bands, I'm also in a band called VEXXYL who are releasing our first demo tonight.
You can get one in person.

In Pacifica, California.

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