Biz Talk: Mentally Vexed

Here's the long awaited interview with Alec from Mentally Vexed records. The label has been carefully building a no-bullshit catalog of hardcore heavy-hitters with tape releases from bands like Sector, Minded Fury, Embrace Death, Out For Justice and more. From the choice of bands to the visuals, everything is craftsmanship. Check out Alec dropping some science on the innerworkings of an independent hardcore label.

When did you start Mentally Vexed and what is the philosophy behind it? Mentally Vexed started in March 2020. It's run by me (Alec), Jack, Mason and Ash, and the basic idea is to push smaller bands and businesses associated with the hardcore scene. We try to keep everything as DIY as possible, and where this isn't possible we use small businesses to do what we need (ie. independent local printers rather than big corporation).

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Discography: Mentally Vexed

Mentally Vexed has been steadily dropping quality hardcore tapes for the last couple of months. For a label that started as a way to pass time during the lockdown, putting out 10 quality releases in a year demands respect. The operation is ran by four hardcore dudes dodging authorities and violating all the pandemic rules to give you the best in current hardcore. This only shows what few motivated individuals can accomplish if they put their minds to it. Who dates wins!

A full blown interview is coming soon, in the meantime here's a list of label's releases to date with commentary from one the label bosses - Alec.

MVR001 - Suppress - Yahzi.

The band that me and Jack MVR play in, it never got a physical release when it came out in 2018 so we decided to put this out in the run up to a new release. The new release still isn't out nearly a year later haha. This one didn't have and tape labels and we also don't really know how many are out there - I think it's about 30. We got more organised after this..

MVR002 - Sector - The Virus Of Hate Infects The Ignorant Mind.

I was just listening to Sector and realised they hadn't had any kind of physicals in the UK, despite the scene being mega into them. I messaged them and Anchit (guitar) replied saying he'd love to do it - they were super easy to work with and are a great band. Aesthetically, this is the release I'm most proud of so far.

MVR003 - Minded Fury - Relapse of Mankind.

I was on a bit of a H8000 kick, and again just decided to message the band asking if they wanted a UK release. If we ever move into putting shows on, I'd love to have these guys over here.

MVR004 - Phaze Two - For The Core.

Phaze Two are from Birmingham UK, same as us, and we are friends with the band. This was one of my favourite local releases so it was a real pleasure when this came together. I really loved this EP, it's almost exclusively fast riffs and mosh riffs.

MVR005 - Embrace Death - Through Lifeless Eyes.

My other band Mantlet played a show in October-ish 2019 with Embrace Death, and we kept in touch since then, they're fun guys and play a nasty Irate cover. This was a co-release with our friends in Nuclear Family records, who did the standard artwork. Jack MVR put together this NAS rip as an alternative artwork for our version and even though I'm biased, I still think it's the best rip I've seen to date.

MVR006 - Infraction - The Black Room.

This was Infraction's second EP, and I was amazed at how they managed to get it sounding so tough as a home recording, especially as they all recorded their parts seperately from each other. This EP is thematically very dark and metallic, and John's vocals really stand out to me - so much, that I asked him to do a guest vocal feature on the new Mantlet EP (which will be out real soon!).

MVR007 - Out For Justice - NorthEazt Takeover.

The band pretty much gave us free reign to do what we wanted aesthetically, so Ash MVR (an incredible tattoo artist and illustrator) wrote out the track-list and credits in a handstyle similar to the band's logo, and it looked fucking incredible. When I sent the band their personal copies, guitarist Lumpy (also of Daze) was so stoked that he basically said "hit me up if you wanna do any of my stuff in the UK". We're taking him up on that, more info soon...

MVR008 - RAUM - Demo.

The only "punk" record on the list, this was a lockdown project by our friend Jake from Cruelty - his brother Liam played drums and he did the rest. I really like the aesthetic Jake had for this band, and it's actually influenced the latest issue of the zine a lot. I listen to this record most days, even though it's only on shitty bandcamp which is a pain in the arse.

MVR009 - Upraised - WVHC.

We heard Upraised writing these songs when we turned up for Suppress practice at the same rehearsal space, and knew we had to put them out. We're mates with the band, but realistically I'd have put it out anyway. I did a vocal feature for one of the songs but they decided they liked their vocalist's take on it better so didn't use my tracks - miserable bastards. The artwork for this one was fully designed by Ash MVR, and I think it's his finest work. For a new band, this release has done INCREDIBLY well and I hope to see Upraised on shows as soon as they start again.

MVR010 will be the Suppress promo tape

for the upcoming EP. The songs are touch as fuck and we have something special and DIY planned for the release, keep your eye out for this.

New Blood: Ghetto Gospel

Photo credit: Lina V.

Ghetto Gospel are the new preachers of fast, attitude laden hardcore outta crisis-stricken Greece. The posse wasted no time and after just few weeks of jamming together in full conspiracy under the new Covid regime, they dropped a bomb in a form of The Price You Pay - nine tracks to check out if early Agnostic Front or SSD is your thing. Read the interview to learn more about the band and Greek hardcore in general.

To my knowledge, the story of Ghetto Gospel is short and straight forward - The Price You Pay is an outcome of just a few rehearsals. Is that correct?
Hey, thanks for the interview and for being interested in GG. Yeah, we started the band in mid December 2020, composed all songs and recorded them in a week or so.Then we sent the songs to Made In Hell studio that took some time to mix them properly. By mid January we had everything ready. It worked out really fast, faster than I expected, to be honest. Actually, we have never rehearsed in a real studio since we are not allowed to due to quarantine restrictions. We did everything at our drummer’s house (except of the drums that were recorded in a studio).

You all play in different bands, is Ghetto Gospel a side project or something more serious?
True, we are all active in various bands, some of us for almost 2 decades now. Our drummer is the youngest one, but he has been (and still is) involved in a dozen bands already! I dare to say that GG is a serious project and hopefully (when all this craziness ends) we’ll be able to reach out to more people with live shows, etc. That said, we don’t wanna set limits, deadlines or boundaries, we are doing this for fun first and foremost and we’ll see where it takes us.

The demo is 80’-styled in-your-face bursts of hardcore with most of the tracks clocking way below one minute mark. Was it the idea from the beginning?
Yeah, the main idea was to play raw and heavy, in your face, old school hardcore / thrash / punk / whatever, so the short songs do well for us. On the other hand, we never said let’s write a song that is 50 seconds or so, it came out kinda naturally. For me, long songs, when it comes to hardcore, are super boring, but that’s a different story.

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2020 can go to hell (Best of)

2020 was wack. It started being wack one day in January, followed by another wack day, and then by 365 more. If your name not Bezos, you can relate. As far as hardcore, the scene has seen better days but I had no problem coming up with a few rippers. The list below proves that even in a dry year, you can still find some legit gems.

Here’s my top of 2020 (spoiler: no Higher Power):

The best: Pain Of Truth - No Blame... Just Facts

It was a blessing to get this ep at the tail end of 2020 to wrap up this fucked up year feeling strong and undefeated. At least that’s how I feel listening to this heavy ass record.

Second best: Mindforce - Swingin Swords, Choppin Lords.

Mindforce never disappoints.

Best split record: Out For Justice / Sector - This Thing Of Ours

No lie, ever since I came across Out For Justice bandcamp I knew this split was gonna be in your face gutter hardcore.

Most vicious: Criminal Instinct - Skull Fucked

It’s just two tracks on digital release but both are sure to get your ass stomped.

Best groove: Three Knee Deep - Three Knee Deep

A record that should not be missed, this album delivers some of the best grooved out rap core of 2020.

Best NYHC: Big Cheese - Punishment Park

Brightside-era Killing Time meets 90' Madball by way of Backtrack (review)

Best rap album: Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist - Alfredo

It was alright, won only because the competition was not that great.

Best Reissue: One Second Thought - Queens Style 1995 - 1999

FWH did a great job combining everything from these Queens heavyweights into a nicely put together digipack.

Second best reissue: Sunrise - Generation Of Sleepwalkers

I never had any strong feeling about Sunrise back in the day, but this album deserved vinyl treatment.

Interview: On Sight

Credit: Steven Pendini

Could you please introduce On Sight and give us some history of the band?

On sight started in 2016 most of us grew up together while those who didn’t years of music has brought us together.

Were you in any bands before?
Doug and Darren played in a few local projects before On Sight but I know Edgar and Dante played in a solid njhc band KNUCKLE UP!

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Interview: Exposure

Exposure rep German hardcore scene and I gotta tell you, their latest stuff in the form of Atonement will wreck you. The band stays winning with heavy ass Clevo worship sounding like In Cold Blood or some shit. This is my unexpected champing of recent months and if you sleep on this band, you're a total ass.

Straight off the bat, that Atonement promo tracks are fire. We will talk about that, but first tell me about Exposure. How it all began?
Thanks man, appreciate it. Exposure began as a - probably late night - idea of mine when I was watching some movie of questionable quality. I had a bunch of riffs and ideas floating around in my head and decided to try and turn them into songs. Few weeks later, I did some rough demoing and showed it to rest. Except for Mi(s)cha, we had all been in a Powerviolence band of sorts called Hikikomori that never really went anywhere and we had joked that Volker sounded too much like Dwid at times to not seize that opportunity, so there we are.

So, give us some insights about Atonement. How the promo tracks are representative for the upcoming full length?
Well, they're 2 songs that sort of cover the spread of what we do as a band. We mosh, we pogo (leather jacket with Deathside and Bastard backpatches) and we enjoy the heavy metal music. Also, these are the 2 songs of the full length we've been playing for the longest. The rest of the full length is different variations of what we've done on the demo. A little more finesse maybe but in essence, our approach is trying to write a hard song with several hard riffs.

For the collectors, who will release the album and on what format?
We're still trying to figure out the specifics but it will most likely be vinyl only.

Your sound has been compared to Clevo bands, do you agree with it? What bands were major influences when starting the band?
Oh yeah, definitely. I'm trying to channel the obvious, golden era Integrity, Ringworm, In Cold Blood, Only The Strong Compilation but I also look to bands like Bastard, Deathside and other Japanese Hardcore bands for influence.

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New Blood: Short Fuse

Italy's newest hardcore hope sharing some insights on...

...the band:

Short fuse is an hardcore band based in rome, born in 2014 by the need to play loud music and scream our voices through these hard times. after a rough two songs demo, recorded after only six months, and some line-up changes we recorded our first ep in 2016 "what still remains", released by indelirum records,. After two years of live shows in italy and a last line-up change, we improved our sound, we hope in more personal way, mixing 90's and old school roots with some melodic and metallic riffage. We recorded in august 2018 our first full length album "sink or Swim", released always through indelirium records, along with our first official video for the titletrack. Right now, we've just played the release party in our hometown and we're planning some next shows, and we can't wait to play live again, hopefully also outside italy!

... the message in the music:

Lyrically we're all engaged in social and political issues, because in our opinion, especially nowadays, there's literally the need to say something about what's going on in this mad world. We believe that's not anachronistic for a hardcore band to restate our positions against fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia and basically against everything built on hate, trying to spread a positive message. However we have always loved also the more personal issues in hardcore lyrics, so in this album we've also written something about our personal lives and feelings, hoping that someone out there can relate to it.

...live element:

Speaking about live shows, that's probably the aspect we like the most about being in a band, especially in a hardcore band. We always try to give 100% on stage, actually when there's a stage hah, because we feel that the energy created inside the gig's room should be used outside it, trying to give our best to turn those words into actions.

...Roma hardcore scene:

Rome's hardcore punk scene is alive and well and there are a lot of great bands! new Bands like Nofu, Not sober at all, movement, closed speech, blair, lenders, irao, fuoco and so on are keeping the standards really high, along with the old school bands, each one with a personal way of doing it. As short fuse we're also part otf the till death collective, a new crew made by friends with the simple but essential aim to aggregate people at hardcore gigs, sharing and comparing their own ideas and thoughts.

Check out Short Fuse @ Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp

Interview: Mindwar

Up for some heavy ass NYHC worship? Then step right up. Belgium's Mindwar is up and coming name on the European hardcore map and their latest EP, Hollow, has an energy that I really like. I could hear Backtrack, No Turning Back and even some Blacklisted influence in these tracks. They got all the ingredients of that style right plus the lyrics that anyone feeling down, angry or just dealing with some awkward situations can relate to. Check out the interview to learn more about these boys.

Can you us give a quick introduction to Mindwar and explain a little how you got started playing music together?
Mindwar is basically a big "band of brothers" (literally!) Anthony (vocals) and Emanuel (guitar) are in fact brothers and I've known these guys for over 19y so we're practicly family. We' all grew up in the same city and share more or less the same interests, one of them being hardcore. After a few years of going to shows together we felt like the Belgian scene was missing something. Beatdown was very popular at that time (thank god those days are over, everyone acted as if they grew up in the hood or some shit looking like they were living in a fucking trailerpark) and we were more into the groovier "I wanna stomp holes in the floor and stagedive headfirst into a brick wall" type of hardcore. Nobody was doing that at the time so that's when we came up with the idea of starting our own band. At first we just jammed either in mine or in Anthony and Emanuel's backyard, just the 3 of us goofing around. Things started speeding up when we invited long-time friend Jelle to the party. At that time he didn't even know how to play drums, still he was our best bet for making this band kinda work. Recently we added Andy to our ranks as a 2nd guitarist and now here we are, just released our ep "Hollow".

Give us some details on the upcoming ep Hollow. Is it going to be along the lines of the demo and generally, what kids should expect from it?
Our ep is basically the demo 2.0. We wrote the songs for our demo like 3-4 years ago and to be honest back than we had no idea what we were doing or how a "Mindwar-song" was supposed to sound like, we just wrote whatever we felt like writing. The demo was pure hardcore worship that included every element we liked about the genre at that time. While writing for our ep I feel like we really found our sound and stepped up our game as far as songwriting goes. Since the release of our demo we all grew so much both as musicians and as people and I think that you're able to hear that growth when you listen to the ep. The hooks are bigger, the riffs are heavier… We just wanted to be the best version of Mindwar we could possibly be and write the best Mindwar tunes we could possibly write.

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Review: Peace Of Mind - Penance

Peace Of Mind rep Germany, one of the strongest scenes in Europe, and this is their newest baby. Penance is 12-track strong and delivers heavy-ass hardcore with a healthy dose of thrash vibe that is so hyped in the scene right now. Musically, it's alright. Nothing that stands out in the current hardcore state of the art, but nothing they should be ashamed of neither. Listening to some of the riffs it's clear the band handles their shit like a pros, but because the head-turning moments are so few the music gets bland at times. Nonetheless, you can hear they put some effort, skills and heart into these tracks.

The vocals are whatever, took me a while to get used to but I give'em a pass. To be honest, every time there are guest vocals on some track I think how much better this record would sound if they went for more harsh delivery instead of high-pitched screams that remind me of that First Blood guy. I hate this style of singing. Even worse, I am not an expert but there's probably a heavy dose of studio engineering needed to make the human voice sound like that which kills any human emotions the singing should convey. As a default, more Jeff Perlin less Carl Schwartz on the vocals is always right.

Some harsh words have been said here, but fuck that review and check for yourself cause chances are you're gonna like at least part of it.

Dead Serious Records, 2018

New blood: Last Orders

Cold Hard Truth, Crippler LBU, Ironed Out, Proven... these are just some of the bands members of Last Orders had their dirty hands in. If you know anything about LBU scene you know it reads like who is who over there, meaning quality is guaranteed. Last Orders is more on the relaxed side of things, especially when it comes to subject matter that revolves around beer, fried chicken and telling hipsters to FUCK OFF... All acceptable topics for a hardcore song. Check out the interview with Ryan (guitar) and Louis (vocals).

First off, Last Orders - give us some overview of the band. How did you get started?

Ryan: Bunch of mates that talked about doing an old school sounding band for a while. Ended up all fitting together well with everyone being on the same page as to what they wanted this band to be....

Louis: Ry (Guitars) had an idea to start a new band but wanted to try something a little different. So he approached Louis (Vocals) who was looking to start another band but wanted to do vocals on his own. After that Ry spoke with Joe (Guitar), Louis chatted to Jake (Drums) and finally Joe asked Skel (Bass) who was up for doing something after taking a few years out from playing in a band.

There’s no money and no fame in playing hardcore, so why do it?

Ryan: We do it because we love it. The music, the message and the people we meet along the way.

Louis: For me I've always done it for two reasons. Firstly, as a release and secondly because in a world that is hard to get your voice heard without diluting your message, hardcore is a great platform to get whatever it is off your chest and spit your rage (so to speak). It's never, ever been about money or fame.

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