Tag Archives: straight edge

March Of the Damned – This months demo round up

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Well it’s been a while. Despite my best intentions of keeping the blog updated weekly, they stumbled and expired on the side of the highway like some knackered old tramp on a hot day when confronted with the greater evil of  an academic deadline looming on the horizon. Consider this update a palate cleanser for me then rather than an omen of things to come. I don’t know if or when I’ll be resuming regular posting/editing here. I don’t plan on leaving it entirely in abandons care but there’s a fallow season upon us.

To business then, first up is the demo from  World Of Difference. They are a new straight edge band that, if memory serves me correctly, contains former members of the Dublin group Bang Bros amongst others…. Continue reading →

The Slugbait Rumor Mill and Other Stories

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Author Nick Baran:

The start of my true love affair with miniature wargaming started with this box.

In 1994 I was part owner of a gaming store with some older, more mature, gaming friends of mine. I was in my early 20’s and playing in a straight edge hardcore punk band called, Halfmast. We were an unlikely group of game store owners: a chemical engineer (our chief investor), a mid-sized retail chain store manager, one of his employees, and myself – an irresponsible punk rocker. We opened the store on the tails of the first big wave of Magic: The Gathering hype. With all of the money we made selling M:TG in our first 6 months we had paid off the chemical engineer’s investment and had a pile of cash `to be invested into another game line. The distributors were pushing a game called Warhammer really hard, and we threw our all of our nested profit into it. Then we did it again with 40K. I started an army for both systems but didn’t fully fall in love with either until a new game dropped called, Necromunda…. Continue reading →

Danger, Dissent and Unfinished Business – Mosh Round Up

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For my money Youngblood have been the dons of the ‘traditional hardcore’ (I hate that phrase) game ever since they dropped the Rancor 7″ back in 1995. That was a seminal record for my circle of friends, a breath of fresh air amongst the poe faced metallic chugga that dominated the sxe scene of the time. If you’ve never heard Rancor I’ll do you a solid and include a link at the bottom of the page, thank me later. Anyway Pimlott switched me onto Line Of Sight after his band True Vision did a stint with them and Insist around the USA year. Youngblood continue their unbeaten run with the Line Of Sight Dissent EP in which this DC quartet manage to breathe new life into that most tired of formula’s Youth Crew Hardcore. How do they manage this? Just like Rancor they got that ENERGY my friend.

See I really only listen to hardcore when I’m involved in some kind of physical activity. Chopping wood, running, pretending I know what I’m doing at the gym etc.  That’s when I subject music to my rugged criteria….‘does this record make me want to smash up this stack of wooden pallets in record time?  or Does this song make me want to throw a barbel through the ceiling? and so on.  I was out jogging when the Line Of Sight record rotated into my playlist. Holy shit when they open with Raze and that floor tom build up/ mosh part comes in after like five seconds, well damn it made this old man inadvertently pop the hood up on his C cuff reverse weave and sprint all the way home like I was missing Youth Of Today at The Anthrax in 1986 or some shit.

I stole that pic above from Jeff Lasich of Start Today fanzine/Bottled Up Records. He’s a cool guy and gave me some nice Firm Standing Law pics for my zine, so go check out his most recent issue for free HERE
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Cured Of Life: Ten questions with Guilt Ritual

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I discovered Guilt Ritual by accident earlier this year when I got talking to frontman Stephen Hupfer about some other nerd shit. Guilt Ritual are cool and sound like all the good bits of 90’s metallic hardcore with none of the bullshit. This interview is taken from my zine Harder They Fall issue 4 which will be up for pre-order in January. That issue also features interviews with Tom Pimlott, Ill Natured, Payday, Firm Standing Law, Insist plus loads of the mad shit that I write at 3 am when I’m deprived of rational thought and sifting through the rubble of my existence to determine exactly where where my life went wrong. Cool. Anyway, here’s Stephen….

Tell our readers about Stephen Hupfer’s secret origin…how did you find hardcore?

When I was younger I listened to a lot of Ramones, Korn and Eminem and had no idea what hardcore was. When I got to high school (2005) I became friends with this kid Jordan who was a year older than me. We were linked up due to our mutual hobby Magic: The Gathering and him wearing goth chain pants that I thought were so sick. One day he gave me a couple CD’s (Set Your Goals – Reset, The Warriors – War is Hell, & Bane – The Note) and told me about these concerts that’d happen every Friday in our town. I thought Bane sucked and The Warriors were the sickest thing I’d ever heard. I went with my new found pal down to this bar and saw 100 Demons & Since the Flood. I was really surprised to see a bunch of kids that were older than me that I went to school with moshing and just beating the shit out of people. For whatever reason hardcore was like the cool thing at my high school. Continue reading →

November Hardcore round up – Part 1

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Let me tell ya readers, we are truly living in some coptic times. Maybe it’s the state of the world that’s got the youth riled up. Not a day goes by without some jackass banging another nail in the coffin of a hopeful outcome for this planet. Sucks for the world but hey great for angry music. My inbox has been inundated with so much fresh well executed hardcore, that it is almost getting boring to review it. With quality at such a consistently high standard it becomes very difficult for a writer, even one as erudite as I, to keep coming up with new ways to describe cool shit. To that end I actively encourage shitheel bands to get in touch with their ham fisted racket, so that I once again have a reason to hack up my scorn first thing of a morning. Anyway the hour is late and I’ve got shit to do so lets crack on with it shall we?

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“Hey Jeff wheres the belly shirt?” – Discovering NYHC The Hard Way

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Did you know that in 1995 the internet didn’t exist? There was no Spotify. Youtube was still a little swimmer in Chad Hurley’s ball bag. Even Lars Fucking Ulrich wasn’t having a hissy fit about Napster yet. Therefore finding any music that wasn’t part of the mainstream was no easy feat. As an up and coming hardcore kid or heavy metal fan it wasn’t that simple to pick up records if you weren’t “in the know” with older heads. Me and my crew came upon hardcore together. Through Biohazard we discovered Sick of It All. Through Sick of it All we were lucky enough to see Strife supporting them at Bradford Rios…..each fresh layer took you a little deeper into the fold. But because were young turds we didn’t have access to that esoteric wisdom passed down by the “older generation”. We were on our own. Continue reading →

For those about to mosh…September Hardcore Roundup

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It has been a while since we last had a peek under the  lid to see what’s boiling away in the realms of underground metal and hardcore. Lets rectify that immediately shall we?

 First out of the skillet is Razorbite I had assumed this shower to be from Leeds given Nat Wood took their photos, Jimmy Wizard drew the cover and Atko recorded the demo but no Donny, these guys and girls are from Glasgow. I’ve visited Glasgow on a number of occasions and it’s always struck me as a tough fucking town. The first time was back in 1997. We asked for a pizza in some glum cafe and the pie faced curmudgeon behind the counter shoved a frozen pizza into a deep fat fryer before presenting it to us on a Glasgow salad, a formidable bed of chips. Like thats normal. Other highlights of that evening included a three legged dog, Knuckledust playing in a weird mosher pub/strip club hybrid hell hole, trying to get some kind of sleep in a sketchy mill and waking to discover we were being silently watched from a doorway by a man in a pair of bunched tighty whities and a Massacre T-shirt. Choice. The sounds Razorbite produce are a testament to all that misery…groove heavy hardcore not unlike Trapped Under Ice I guess, but the production on this is all squashy and sounds like the first One King Down record. I like that One King Down record loads though so it’s chill. So yeah, Trapped Under Ice meets Albany hardcore circa 1994 with bratty female vocals. It’s a combination that took some getting used to but its not immediately like anyone else and I dig it. Maybe you will too, have a listen HERE 

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The History Of Nemesis Records by Patrick Kitzel & Frank Harrison  (Tribal Books/ Reaper Records) 2016

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I’ll preface this article by stating that when it comes to putting together these reviews, unlike many of my peers, I do not fuck with press release material. I read so many reviews of books/music/movies/comics whatever that are just lazy rewrites of the blurb that accompanies the product. I consider reviews like that to be devoid of any genuine opinion or individual insight and therefore without critical merit. They depersonalise the experience of absorbing the material. As far as I’m concerned that is a massive disservice to the effort put into project by it’s creators and the expectations of you, the reader. Rest assured that when your stuff ends up on the desk of Nathan Bean, you better know I will review the SHIT out of that thing.

My first purchase on Nemesis Records way back in 1993 was the Bonesaw record. As was often the case in the 90’s, this was a random pick up based upon the fact that I thought Bonesaw was a cool name for a band and the songs on the record had hard titles. I had previously heard one Bonesaw song on a sampler CD someone gave me outside my first hardcore the year before and I rinsed that record for a whole summer. Have I listened to Bonesaw since that Summer? Have I fuck. Continue reading →

Firm Standing Law – Unashamed 7″

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South East straight edge outcasts Firm Standing Law follow up last years Unforgiving X demo with a new 7” entitled UNASHAMED on Carry The Weight Records. With a veteran lineup that boasts former (and current) members of Cold World, Repentance, Coldsnap, Never Again and many more, FSL may come with a nigh on flawless pedigree of straight edge hardcore but with that also comes the burden of expectation.
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Breaking Point – Set To Burn review

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bxpart

Nice shoes Dan.

I think at one time or another almost every Straight Edge dude in the South East has done a tour of duty in Breaking Point. Such is the mercurial nature of the straight edge hardcore band, members come and go, edges crumble whilst others remain resolute. Over the course of the last five years Breaking Point have steadily churned out workmanlike metallic hardcore. And though I cannot say I have ever been blown away by any of their previous recordings, as a live band they are A+. Always entertaining, energetic and inclusive enough to serve well as an accessible gateway band for young moshers and edgemen alike stumbling down into the underbelly of UKHC . And really that’s the point is it not? Continue reading →