Vacant State - Fill the Void

elusive, straight-forward hardcore from Vancouver that makes you wanna grab your board and shred the nearest mini ramp. west coast style (perfectly captured by the SST derivative cover art) with plenty of boston's earlier talents' flavor. vocals are barking-like shouts, reminiscent of NEGATIVE APPROACH. so basically, it's either a wonderful culmination of country-wide ushc, or i need to pay much closer attention to the scene across our northern border.

excellent overall balance; from wailing guitar leads, chugging bass riffs, rhythm/tempo variation, traditional (genre-appropriate) song structure, and even lyrical content. considering this is their debut full-length, and despite the fact that they play a very generic brand of punk, it's quite impressive stuff. 11 track onslaught of thrash parts, circle pit ragers, dance parts and stage dive opportunities abound. no cheesy Bridge 9 gang vocals, which i am generally fond of, but if they existed here it would probably take away from their flow. good call.

lyrics span from dissatisfaction with fake friendships, frustration with stagnancy and redundancy/boredom, defiance towards conformity, and - to paraphrase both this act as well as CEREMONY - just feeling "sick". again: generic, but done really well. maybe "classic" is maybe a bit more fitting. i would, however, like to think that they are paving a new path with songs like "Rhetoric". i interpret it as a kind of critique towards left-wing politics and their pretentious subscribers, but not one that's in total opposition to being "socially conscience", for lack of a better term. basically, i see it as a statement that any representative of an oppressed group - insofar as they are asserting themselves as a representative/expert/what-have-you - are thus exposing themselves as members of the authoritative class through that very act. but hey, that's probably me reading in way too far.

all theorizing aside, this LP is fantastic. you should buy it, as it is hella cheap, or at least download it and talk them up in your town/city to earn them some more exposure and a larger attendance if and when they come through.

songs that get my proverbial motor running: Rhetoric, Fill the Void, Alone, No.

available through: Deranged Records, Go It Alone, and probably any number of other distros. last.fm is in the title. enjoy!

WORLD TOUR WITH DRAKE, PLZ.

Full of Hell - Roots of Earth are Consuming My Home

UHHH 9.6/10 SERIOUSLY OLD NEWS I KNO GUYS BUT OMG I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO IT ON REPEAT FOR ALMOST A MONTH NOW AND IT'S BASICALLY THE BEST SO GO BUY IT DOWNLOAD IT GET SOME MERCH SEE THEM ON TOUR I DON'T CARE JUST FUCKING APPRECIATE THIS SHIT BECAUSE IT COMES ONCE IN A BLUE MOON GOD LORD WILL SOMEONE LET ME JOIN THIS BAND IS IT TOO SOON FOR A COVER BAND I DON'T KNOW SO MANY QUESTIONS IS THAT A CATERPILLAR NOPE JUST A CIGARETTE I LEFT IN MY WINDOW SILL WHOOPS.

eff this crowd, srsly. i'd be murdering everyone >>>

Social Coma - Self-Titled 7"

an all-too-often glossed over piece of Chicago power-violence magic. a surprising fact considering the band shared members with both the legendary CHARLES BRONSON and the almighty MK-ULTRA. repressed by Youth Attack, who also recently put out new RAW NERVE material. (see y'all on the 29th!)

clocking in at 11.5 minutes, this fifteen track 7" of shrieking female-fronted terror should probably have been sold with a paper bag with which to hyper-ventilate or puke from cranial overload. ear-wrecking shit.

favorite tracks of mine: Smear the Career, Confused as Fuck, Thanks for the T-Shirt, Marlboro Man, and Death of a Clone.

i don't really know what else to say about this release, it's pretty self-explanatory. so with that being said,

CHI-TOWN REPRESENT.

Seven Sisters of Sleep - Self-Titled LP

"tune low, get high" probably sums this album up better than the widely circulated description "sludge for people with short attention spans". granted, both are accurate, but there's so much more to Seven Sisters of Sleep than sludge. this is one of the few full-lengths in recent history that can be appreciated beyond the tracks contained within. this record, with its incredible gatefold artwork, consistency, uniqueness, dope (pun slightly intended) lyrics, etc. is simply an experience that the listener is actively engaged in. the fact that it's only 8 tracks at just under 20 minutes in length makes it all the more impressive.

tons of melodic feedback allow the songs to flow together nicely, and also gives you a chance to let your brain catch up with your ears. distorted, gruff vocals work in collaboration with the rhythm section nicely, whether intentionally or not is irrelevant. the cymbals are probably one of the biggest overall record highlights. maybe it was an effort in microphone placement or equalizing or something, but they actually stand out without having to be whipped as hard as possible. the rich tones they produce help keep an overall mellow vibe even with SSOS is hammering your soul with satanic, anti-capitalist hardcore. yes, i did just use the words "mellow" and "vibe" in succession. no, i do not regret it.

while describing their sound in more detail with a handful of local punx, i found myself viscerally making the following oversimplification: "it's somewhere between COUGH and early BLACK SABBATH, but with more rage and sometimes way faster". so yeah, to further oversimplify: heavy metal guitar riffs, crust punk bass, gritty wailing vocals, drums that slash your face.

standout tracks, in my humble opinion, include: Tide is Rising, CCEC, and Follow the Serpent. this may only be for the fact that they're the most pissed off sounding ones, but i stand by it. honorable mention also goes to Passed Out Standing, mainly for using a guitar riff that gets stuck in my head for at least an hour a day. Swamp also has some sweet lyrics. most of their songs can be streamed on youtube with footage from The Holy Mountain and weird shit like that. so that's cool. i wish i could spend more time talking about how special i think this band is/will be, but i think for the time being this album speaks for itself. another gem dropped by the folks at A389 Records. click this posts' link to access their website and check out all of their sweet merch that's probably all limited and shit like that. otherwise, you can dig them via facebook, like 'em, and build the hype so that they may exceed it in the future.

till next time...

Young and In the Way - Amen

Young and In the Way are, surprisingly, a mere four-piece band who are giving a whole new rise to the North Carolina punk scene. i say "surprisingly" because of the amount of noise they create. the sheer intensity of each song/release is simply undeniable. their last.fm entry describes YAITW as, "fast blasts and destructive crust with ties to unrelenting hardcore and black metal", which is not wholly inaccurate. too hardcore to be blackened crust, too blackened to be hardcore. if i were to describe them in a word, which is admittedly not a simple task, it would be "evil dark hardcore". (okay, that's three words, but whose blog is this, i ask you?)

Amen is my personal favorite of their albums thus far, though their newest LP entitled I Am Not What I Am is also pretty ruthless. and sold out on vinyl. damn.

the record kicks off with an instrumental track, which begins with some dreary noise, quickly followed by a bone-crushing wave of distortion and dissonance. awesome, right? without hesitation they begin blasting through "Dark Seed". with the snare smashing through the downbeats and the tempo-change-to-(yes i'm about to use this word)-breakdown, head-banging is imminent. roaring through the record, YAITW puts to use everything from blasts to half-time to d-beat while maintaining an overall gloomy/cold atmosphere. thus, this record not only has the ability to command your undivided attention, but also keeps that attention. in other words, you become involved with the record as opposed to being subjected to - and eventually lost in - the noise.

standout tracks for me include "Worrier" and the final track "The Becoming". the former exhibits a fucking awesome bottoming out of the guitar and drums during the hook line, which will ensure pile-ons for as long as they perform. the latter, however, is truly a masterpiece in and of itself. a fourteen-minute-long epic, "The Becoming" is surrounded on both sides (intro/outro) by an eerily serene arrangement of instruments, and the song - even after kicking in - has a momentum to it that you can feel building and building. the "climax" of the song, if you will, arrives right around the 9:10 mark, and honestly i think it might have the almighty FALL OF EFRAFA beat, at least in terms of rage. debatable as that may be, this track is still fucking incredible in its own right, and from what i can tell the band at large deserves much more attention.

a bandcamp link is provided in this post's title. you can listen to/purchase the digital albums and splits/EPs there. if you'd like to get a hard copy or vinyl (good luck) of any of their releases, keep checking out their official website: here. oh, also, their logo and artwork is badass. just thought i'd mention that as a final word.

GO FORTH AND WREAK HAVOC.

Terminal Youth - Self-Titled LP

Terminal Youth were a thrashcore band from Massachusetts, but with a distinctly west coast vibe. short-lived as their "career" may have been, i am grateful that they were able to unleash this 18-song record unto the world. maybe it's because i'm from Chicago (no coast like no coast!), but i don't feel that nearly enough people appreciate this hardcore outfit; this sublime effort in particular.

if you're more prone to checking out a band based on "member diversity" or whatever, they did have (i believe) a female bass player. lyrically, from what i've deciphered, TY seems to stick to the proverbial script, covering inter-personal relationships as well as some introspective subjects and occasionally offering some subtle political commentary. borderline powerviolence at times, this album truly rips from front to back. major distortion, major treble, major speed. "fastcore" is an applicable sub-sub-genre, if you're into such specificities.

distributed through To Live A Lie (who, incidentally, recently dropped the new DEATHRATS 7"!!!), i believe that there was a batch of just over 500 vinyl that are now, perhaps permanently, sold out. in the meantime, check out their myspace and get all resourceful if you want more.