Video: Clearview - Dirty Streets
Whether thug life is your thing or you want to harden up through listening to hardcore this is the shit right here. This track is from band's new album and deals with harsh realities of Sao Paulo. From start to finish this just both musically and vocally dominates. This is about as high in the quality department as hardcore has gotten in 2017.
Interview: Society Sucker
"hardcore is a very powerful cultural force in the underground
When we stop worrying about social and political matters we are actively working against what hardcore itself is supposed to be. "
Can you give Society Sucker some introduction. Where you from, how long you’ve been around?
Society Sucker is a hardcore band based in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Wilmington, North Carolina. We wrote and recorded a shitty demo in a week in 2013 and have been at it in one form or the other since then.
Promo ‘17 sounds sick. Tell us something about these new songs. Is there a new album coming and do you have any other new tracks ready?
Thank you so much for saying that! And yeah these two songs are part of a larger grouping of songs that we plan to put on an LP later this year. We have about 3 more songs finished more or less and a handful more in the process of coming together as I write this. We don't have any real plans yet with the actual physical release but its a little too early to worry about that stuff right now. We wanted to get the promo out to let people we are still alive and writing and show them the direction that we are going in for the LP since we feel it is our strongest material to date.
How is average Society Sucker track put down?
We have a pretty cool set up at our guitarist Chris's house where we are able to jam pretty much anytime and record it, so we riff around a lot and work off of ideas until we come up with something that sticks. The whole process is pretty organic, we try and get everyone's input and write stuff that we want to listen to or beat someone's ass to, whichever works.
People compare your band to Merauder, Leeway.... How would you describe your sound to people who are just getting familiar with you?
We started out wanting to be groovy and heavy, mixing elements of NYHC with thrash metal and crossover, but we kept kind of evolving between our demo to our first 7" to our split with Will to Die to now. The influences are still there but our approach to writing the type of hardcore that interests us has changed. I would say we are a heavy hardcore band at our core without a doubt, but we aren't trying to replicate anyone else's sound or be a "X-type of band" or whatever. We definitely take influence from Merauder, Leeway, Crown of Thornz, Stigmata and its obvious, but we also take just as much from bands like Alice in Chains, Guns N' Roses, all sorts of other shit so it's hard to pin down where exactly we are at any given moment. We are hardcore dudes playing the type of hardcore that we want to hear.
Review: Bent Life - Never Asked For Heaven
I saw this band live and the music was so good I knew I had to get this record. The show itself was odd cause the singer didn’t say a word between the tracks, which is not a hardcore standard, but not everyone is Scott Vogel and the music was dope. Special kudos to the guitar man, this dude is crazy and his work carries a lot of weight here. If they make any money on this record he should get the biggest cut. The band goes of their way to fill every track with both force and groove to make sure today’s hardcore audience is satisfied. If you follow what’s hip in hardcore right now I am sure you’ll find a lot of this stuff here. I mean nothing bad, just saying this has all the right ingredients. On top of it, the singer voice is really rough and he spits every word in full fuck-it-all mode. On the downside, I don’t like the way this is produced. They really went for a heavy sound but in the end a lot of details get lost. Overall, this package is complete: ridiculous songs, forceful vocals and murderous hatred for the whole world.
Bridge 9, 2016
Video: Slope - Goodbye Mr. Dandy
This fucking dress code. I know copying other dudes style is part of hardcore and we’re all guilty of this, but some trends are better than other. I dig good Madball copycat as the next man but I can’t understand why dudes in 2017 try to look like Kurt Cobain and The Stone Roses. Why I talk fashion not the music? Because hardcore is more than music. But getting down to this, the video is both simultaneously decent and shitty. It looks goofy as fuck, but visuals aside the music is not as bad as the singer’s shirt would try to make you believe. This is totally different to what BDHW usually puts on the market. The crew were obviously gunning for the Turnstile crowd with this one but despite the bad intentions there are some hints of decency.
Review: Absolve / Heavy Runner / Power Play - split
This ep has covers of E-Town Concrete, Hatebreed and Death Threat. That should speak to the vibe of the thing.
Absolve is the fastest and their opening track Nothing’s Right is swift and lethal, one of the best I’ve heard in recent times. The vocals are high end, they aggression in the way this dude spits out the verses is amazing. Not many bands cover Death Threat so props to them for this choice, especially when it’s one of my favorite DT tracks and it’s done so well.
The music offered by Heavy Runner is pure ‘90s era beatdown sound. I think bands from this side of Europe don’t get their props when it comes to the dope music they make. Runner is grimy, raw and violent, but nothing feels forced. Everything from the lyrics to the music feels like it could be snatched from any Next Step Up or Stout album.
The same can be said about Power Play. Echo is a beast packed with meaty groove and don’t-fuck-with-me attitude. A lot of newer bands try way too hard to bring back that feel of early Hatebreed or 100 Demons albums, but this band does it perfectly. Their sound has even improved since previous eps. The Hatebreed cover is a rugged , drum heavy, hard-hitting monster. The flat out skill apparent in both tracks make them a name to reckon with.
These 3 bands kill each and every track showing how perfect meeting of the minds this ep is. Each of them display a style that is raw and in your face and miles away from polished and watered down hardcore of today. This is the opposite of everything HCWW channel stands for.
Ratel, 2017
New King Of Clubz
If a band has its previous records released by labels like Filled With Hate or On The Attack you can guess with high confidence what type of sound they’re up to. King Of Clubz is take-no-shit, raw and heavy hadcore that brings to mind the good old days of early Biohazard and Hatebreed (before both became joke of a band). I got their debut MCD called The Day You Die and even though I haven’t listened to it for a while, I remember it was solid. Raw and forceful, but honest. This shit is from 2003, go figure. Three years later and the band releases split with Whatever It Takes which to me is the highlight. Everything fits just right, from the artwork to the music. WIT has some crazy titled tracks on this one, like Teddybear Bastard or Champagne Whores. Work of genius. KOC has songs with titles like Betrayed, Suffering Begins or Inked In Blood, scary shit. On top of that, there’s a Madball cover. Don’t ask me about the albums that followed cause I lost touch until King Of Clubz / Providence split which was a banger. But from what I heard The End and Outlast were decent so I might catch up with this stuff.
To my surprise the band is still active and they will be releasing “Vile Times” via Knives Out Records (France). You can trust this label to make this stuff worth any price as they did a marvelous job with Grimlock and Crawlspace re-releases. Listening to the new tracks made me feel like I woke up in late-90’/early-00’ again. Band’s aggression and directness are on display here in 10 tight tracks encompassing love and hate, brotherhood and revenge, integrity and determination. KOC still don’t play with finesse and get on with this shit like they’re young again. Most of the tracks go from mid-tempo to faster, but not too fast tempos carried by tight musicianship and rough, forceful vocals. Pretty decent comeback.
More info here.
Clearview: Absolute Madness promo
Their previous stuff was mad dope but these new tracks really stepped it up. I had these two on constant repeat all day today and am still not tired of it. That album title is not misleading. Fans of Risk It, Terror or Manipulate should take notice.
