Video: Reserving Dirtnaps - Reserving Dirtnaps
There's a strenght in simplicity and hardcore clips made of chopped up live footage never get boring. Good one from Reserving Dirtnaps, Memphis hardcore!
Is that new Cold As Life any good?
Cold As Life keeps on coming back together every now and then but this time beside touring there's new music to be expected. When you got a band with that huge rep and history it's hard to live up to the past. No wonder there are lots of different opinions on whether this Cold As Life is legit or not. Especially when there's just one dude (drummer Roy Bates) that connects to the times when the band got is start. The rest of the line up are new dudes or guys who joined the ranks when they started touring again some time ago. You can suspect some money grab scheme but who am I to tell? First, is there any serious money to be made here? Part of me doubts that, but I also know there will be many dudes in Germany or Belgium ready to buy merch and shit in large quantities. Secondly, who am I to interfere in internal Detroit power struggles? So politics aside, let the music speak for itself. Is this new incarnation of Cold As Life even worth checking out on the stremph of the new songs?
Suffer - musically it lacks that dirt and filth that made their old albums so menacing but compared to majority of current hardcore it delivers. The lyrics are deep and brutal dealing with a loss of a close one to addiction. People changed but Cold can still provide that eerie grime storytelling few other bands could relay. Jesse's vocals are made to sound very much like Jeff Gunnells which is probably the smartest thing to do. I had very low expectations going in but Suffer is a menacing cut that still holds its CTYC roots.
For The Few - solid tune but doesn't carry that much force as Suffer. This is basically a salute to your homeboys holding it down for you which doesn't necessary mean a bad thing in hardcore but it's not what I would expect from this band. On the music front nothing above average. Though I’d wanted new Cold As Life to be like the old Cold As Life I know that is not possible.
So it's 50/50 chances this new ep is not gonna suck.
Days of old
On the rise: Day By Day
Day By Day is a band from Florida that I had not clue about until I got the news Ratel Recs will be releasing their new 7" - 'From Now On'. I am glad they do cause this band rules. The music is good. The vocals are menacing. The artwork looks weird. You can hear they put a lot of thought into their sound making it hard to pin down to a specific style of hardcore. It's in your face aggressive but also very much on a dark and negative vibe. When hardcore deals with usual everyday drama and mix it with some grimy psychological shit I'm all for it. Nothing wrong with squeezing few minutes of thinking about death and mortality into your daily grind. I will definitely get my dirty hands on that ep.
Interview: Altered Beast
Give us some info about Altered Beast?
We all live in Kansas City, Missouri. We started the band in early 2014. Been chugging away since then. Aren't really built for touring because me and the drummer have a lot of kids and life going on. Haha. We are open to some ideas though if people reach out. We definitely aren't going to turn anything cool down.
How did the band come about?
Max and Dakota (guitarists) approached me about doing vocals. They had a song (Come Clean) off the demo written and threw it my direction. I scammed our drummer Dan because he and I had been working on some other ideas. We started writing songs and scooped Steve up on bass. The cool thing is none of us had any other projects at the time. It is a good energy when everyone is hungry and focused on one project. Since then things have changed. Most the other guys have other things going on. We aren't writing as many songs as I want, but I'm not stressing.
Just recently you dropped new self-titled ep. What was your main goal when writing these new tracks?
We had been playing these tracks live for a while. We instantly kept writing after we dropped the demo tape. The songs were pretty mature by the time we hit the studio the second time for this ep. We still kept it bare bones as far as production. The one thing we did consistent was record in the same studio. It is a super nice modern studio with great equipment and rooms. War of Ages, and Norma Jean had both recorded there. The goal was to keep it natural and raw sounding. No bullshit effects that made us sound like some studio monster. I wanted that live sound. We record the songs live and punch in the fixes for any mistakes we made. I save the vocals tracks for the end, and usually try to nail them with a single take. I don't like reverb or any overdubbing on my vocals.
Who is going to release it on a physical format?
We actually have it pressed on 7 inch now with our friend Sam from Blak Skul Records now out of KC. He lives next to Max and has been super cool putting it out. We have gotten some good responses out of it. Even Maximum Rock N Roll gave us a cool review. I was pretty nervous when Sam submitted it to them. Normally they chew bands like us and spit them out. Haha. We pressed 400 on black, and around 100 on red.
How did you get involved in hardcore?
I got involved in hardcore by just listening to the music. I lived in a very small town and there were some older friends that were part of the early 80's movement that taught me the ways. I didn't understand the subgenres until I started getting older. You gotta understand that I am about to be 41 years old. I began listening to independent music at a really young age. I was exposed to DRI and Slayer when I was in 6th grade. So that was around 1985/1986. I got directly involved by playing in a local band after high school and opening up a lot of the local shows. I was always going to shows though. I was addicted to dancing and having fun. I didn't care if I was solo or going with a group of friends. After all those years I just kept getting more and more involved from running sound at a local venue, to putting on random shows of my own in the city.
What did you find inspiring about that movement?
The first time I understood what the difference between hardcore and other music was when I began to get deep into NYHC worship. I was so intrigued with who was related to who, and what bands they all had before. I had known about most of the bands through the years, but like I said, I didn't understand that Agnostic Front, Slapshot, Murphys Law, etc were part of a sub genre call hardcore. The most inspiring thing that drew me in was hearing AF Last Warning and hearing the in between talking that Roger did. He was talking about unity and caring about social causes that were affecting them in NYHC. That whole positive banter and vibe showed me the reality of their style. After that I picked up on 25 Ta Life and Rick's lyrics were super positive on Strength Through Unity. At that time I was sold on the idea of Unity and Togetherness. That is what initially attracted me to hardcore. How you could sound so tough, and the pits be so wild, and have such a caring and inclusive message.
Demo Daze: Dead Heat, Territory, Badwill
Territory - Blackhole Blues Demo
Tucson, Arizona heavyweights back with 3 new tracks that scream 90' metalcore. If that style is your shit you need to give it a try. Sheer Terror cover is a bonus.
DOWNLOAD / BANDCAMP
Badwill - Мы Те, Кто Мы Есть
This one is from the other side of iron curtain. Tough as nails music with heavy grooves and vocals that don't fuck around. Only one track is sung in English, the rest is in Russian.
DOWNLOAD / BANDCAMP
Dead Heat - Access Denied/ S.E.E.D.
2 tracks of musical punishment filled with classic uncut raw that brings to mind likes of Merauder or Leeway. Metallic hardcore hasn't sounded so good in a while.
BANDCAMP
Review: Schizma - O Nas
Schizma are local legends in their native Poland but among international hardcore community their status is not so solid. It’s a shame cause they released some of the finest hardcore music I’ve heard in my life. I pity people not familiar with their magnum force opus Unity 2000, a beast of a record from, you guess, year 2000. That album is one of my top ever, but I’m also never far away from a copy of Pod Naciskiem, their previous output where they really nailed their NYHC-infused sound. It’s crazy to think those albums came out over 15 years ago. Many consider that to be the best era of the band. The records the band put out in 2000s appeared to be a series of close misses or shots that veered way off target. Nothing embarrassing, but nothing great neither. In recent years they switched their formula and instead of full length album every couple of years they started putting out shorter four track eps. This format works for them and the band may really be getting some of their mojo back.
O Nas is a top quality hardore. There are 4 tracks and everything about them just clicks. The ep flows well from start to finish. The band plays tought ass hadcore with a crossover/thrash vibe but they try to put their stamp on it so it’s not just a mixtape of different influences. Some of the riffs sound like they could be lifted from Chaos AD, while some tracks are straight up hardcore. The music do not get stale and it’s amazing how many creative ways they came up with to make this stuff above average without losing aggression and focus. Not a moment of this feels too long or repetitive. On top of it all, fertile vocals deliver the message of strength and resilience without sounding pretentious. If you don’t mind this being sung in Polish give it a try.
Spook Recods, 2017
Video: Crowd Deterrent - Hated Ones
Hated Ones - the true outcasts of the hardcore scene
Hated Ones - always on our own and that's just fine with me
New Blood: La Guadana
Give us some background about the band? Who are the members, when was it formed and where your're based?
Basically La Guadaña is only 3 old friends who had the idea for so long to play together and record something before our guitar player moved to Israel for a few months.
The members are Samuel, the drumer , Ofer ( guitar ) and myself, Josue ( voice, bass and some guitars) We all live in a small town near Barcelona called El Masnou.
Samuel and me have played together for almost 20 years in the band Anal Hard, Samuel plays aswell in a punk rock band called Guspira and I have a rock band Called Destierro. Ofer also has a Stoner rock band called Grass and played many years in the hardcore band Fresh Thrash.
What have you released so far?
So far all we have is the demo cassette with 6 tracks on it, released on backside records a while ago.
Review: Enemy Mind - No Safe Space
Enemy Mind is a name that ring bells in beatdown circles. The band released their self-titled debut in 2009, followed the same year by split with Line Of Scrimmage, but has been mostly silent since. So this new album can come as surprise cause many believed the band is long dead and gone. They’re not and this new record on BDWH is a proof. They always were on the heavier vibe but with these new tracks the band got heavy as shit with death metal influences all over. Not to say the core element is gone. Despite all that metal stuff you can hear where they come from and there are some hints of Hatebreed, Bulldoze or Built Upon Frustration breaking through from underneath the surface.
No Safe Place is not a bad record but it’s not like after first listen I couldn’t wait to tell people about it. The thing is that, I’m not so crazy about death metal, I can barely sit through entire Morbid Angel record. I can’ even tell you how this one compares to current standards for death metal. There were times when listening to this album I thought to myself I’d rather be listening to Madball.
The title is a play on sensitive college kids and if you’re offended that’s your problem. The band is from Pittsburgh and they don’t have safe spaces over there.
Overall, the album doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from the other metallic beatdown bands we’ve heard countless times before in recent years, but if you enjoy hadcore of that style, then it’s worth checking out.
BDHW 2017
Crawlspace 'Don't Get Mad...' reissue on Knives Out
Knives Out will be releasing 'Don't Get Mad... Get Even!' as a double picture disc 10". As always expect top quality, this is strictly collectors item.
The deluxe "OG" edition is limited to 100, featuring a die-cut heavy paper sleeve packaging, a 48 pages "Sanctuary Flyers" book, a 12 cm, Crawlspace piece of wood logo, illustrated download card, a die-cut vinyl Crawlspace sticker, a #number certificate - all is hand-numbered.
The classic "MAD" edition is limited to 150, featuring a die-cut heavy paper sleeve packaging, illustrated download card, a die-cut vinyl Crawlspace sticker, a #number certificate - all is hand-numbered.
The inside sleeve main color is blue for the private sales (for both edition) and then red for normal official sales. Both edition packagings, download cards, certificates are different.
Orders here.
