There are so many hardcore albums. So many I want to listen to and write about. Too many really. They all deserve my time, yet with life, I have too little to spare. It's gotten bad recently and the sheer weight of all the albums I've been ignoring has finally manifest into something like a mental handicap. So I'm clearing the deck! I've scooped up some of the hardcore albums that I've had on the back burner and I'm writing a couple of words about each. No pretense. No backgrounds research. No bullshit. I'm just grabbing them, shoving them in my ear, and seeing what gets spews out the other end and onto the blog. These reviews are super casual. We're hanging out. We're having a good time with some bad vibes. It's happening here. Now.
Drill Sergeant - Vile Ebb (Convulse Records)
I really like how Drill Sargeant just hits you over the head with the opening riffs of this LP. I feel like I've just had a brick dropped on my skull from three stories up and now the person who is responsible for my injury is also driving me to the hospital- in the rain, in a hatchback with four bald tires... and they are on some shit! Vile Ebb is a rough ride and it lives up to its title. There is a weird kind of psychedelic (psycho-delic?!?) edge to these tracks too. A wiggly kind of jangle that heightens the altered state of mind the band seems to be going for and it pushes the manic vocals to sound even more deranged than they otherwise might. Drill Sargeant might be a lot of things, but they certainly aren't a bore.
Vile Ebb is out via Convulse Records.
God, the guy on this cover, is intimidating. I'm pretty sure the band just photoshopped a hood and an assault rifle onto a picture of a knight, but it's still scary as hell. I like it! Sonically, this is one of those records where the band just throws themselves at you. Like they can't tell the difference between a musical performance and a rugby scrum. It mainly consists of slippery, '80s style SS Decontrol riffs and grooves with a dose of d-beat crust in the tank. They've also got that classic kind of irreverence about them that only hardcore bands of a ceratin stripe can pull off. I'm thinking specifically of songs titled "Mỹ Lai Amusement Park" and "Columbine Star Factory." It's tasteless, but art doesn't, and shouldn't, always be entirely pleasant to encounter. The world can be a pretty rotten place to live in. It would be an even worse place though, if art couldn't reflect this rottenness honestly, with all its painful ambiguity and ambivalence.
Worn - Human Work (From Within Records)
Solid grooves. That's my first thought when spinning up Worn's Human Work. They've obviously been doing their homework and studying up on what made late '80s New York hardcore, the most kick-ass variety of body music of its day. I like how there is a build-up to the point where they introduce the vocals on "Harm You." There is a lot of tension that gets spun up leading up to that point, and when the vocals come in, they are very scary. The guy is doing a kind of James Pligge style of death vocals. Terse, direct, and deadly. Every line feels like it's taking a bite out of you, and they match the chewy quality of the grooves really well. Especially on "Public Execution" and "Thrown to Dogs." Human Work is the sound of someone's humanity imploding. Good luck putting yourself back together after this one.
Ideation - Blunt Instrument Demo (Dynastic Yellow Star Label)
SQK Fromme - Self-Titled Tape (Dream House)
Japenese style hardcore that sounds like it was recorded in a haunted house. SQK Fromme achieves some weird effects with guitar distortion on their self-titled tape, a lot of which I'm honestly not sure if I've heard anywhere else. Sometimes the effects just cling to the guitar chords, like loose, flabby skin, that is being sluffed off in some kind of horrible metamorphosis, and other times it sounds like a vengeful spirit is attempting to shriek a curse at you through their amps. Which is fitting because the music would sound completely hostile even without this thick fog of feedback. Half the time, it just sounds like the band are beating each other with their instruments. A lot of bad vibes flowing around on this one... and that's the way I like it.
DESINTEGRACIÓN VIOLENTA - DESINTEGRACIÓN VIOLENTA (Unlawful Assembly)
Vicious blackened and noisy hardcore from cross-continental punks, Desintegración Violenta. Total collapse! Indiscriminate audio violence! The band have built an absolute zone of terror from which there is not safe exit. I'm completely hooked on the Japanese hardcore by way of Latin crust-punk they are playing on their self-titled. It sounds completely hopeless, and like the band doesn't care if they live or die, so long as they can spit blood in your face before the reaper takes them. For whatever reason, bands with a connection to South America are really able to fully realize the potential for defiant, annihilation of form and convention that hardcore music represents, and do it in a way that always feels vibrant and vital. Desintegración Violenta definetly has that much going for them.
Buy Desintegración Violenta's self-titled from Milwaukee's Unlawful Assmebly.
Spaced describe their sound as "Far Out Hardcore" and that description is without parallel in my mind. A little bit of Turnstile, a dash of '90s alt-rock, maybe some Scowl and Militarie Gun thrown in- Spaced's demo is a swirling, beam of radiation and lightly lysergic punk, that slams its way into your headspace and unloads the contents of its fevered brain into the tiny cup of your skull until its overflowing and dribbling down your cheeks. Spaced seem to want to be different and plant a flag in the unclaimed margins of today's hardcore scene. And for all intents and purposes, they are doing just that. Good work! A+. No notes.
Spaced - Demo (Self-Released)
I can't lie. I really like it when a hardcore band sounds like they just a bunch of dudes beating the shit out of each other in an alley. And that's definitely what I'm hearing on Mantlet's Concrete Crucifixion. This is what I'd expect to be playing in the background while guys break 2-by-4s and empty bottles over each other's heads and thoracic regions. This is especially true on the final track where everything devolves into unrestrained screaming. It's a good place for the album to end btw, because if this was actually a street fight, the point where someone is just rolling around on the ground screaming is right around the time when the cops are likely to pull up and join in the fray. Thankfully, you can get the same kind of adrenaline rush without risking a bloody nose or rupture a disc by listening to Concrete Crucifixion at home with your bros while you play Xbox and give each other noogies. It's your choice. Though, I'm probably going to go with the latter option, and continue to enjoy my health while I imagining the vicarious thrill of the former- with Mantlet's help of course. RIYL: brawling, beatdown, rough housin' with the boys.