hardcore punk

by Cosmo Lee Playing Enemy were a Seattle three-piece that called it quits in late 2006. Their final record, My Life As the Villain, recently came out on Hex. They’re a midpoint between Dischord math rock and Botch mathcore, with the enunciation of the former and the elbows of the latter. Setting them apart from […]

by Cosmo Lee Tomorrow’s a big day for metal anniversaries. Overkill’s Under the Influence and Slayer’s South of Heaven both turn 20, and Suicidal Tendencies’ self-titled debut turns 25. Now, Suicidal Tendencies isn’t a metal record. Other than a few metal-ish leads, it’s hardcore punk. It’s also Suicidal Tendencies at their most vicious – and […]

by Jess Blumensheid The day The Endless Blockade aren’t pissed, there will be no god. (Ed. note: Or there might be one.) They live up to their name by instilling extreme wrath for human trash, wasteful lifestyles, and the fear of god in every release. Such hostility allows The Endless Blockade to enclose themselves with […]

Bad news from Canada’s Cursed. Say it ain’t so, Joe. Yeah, you heard. Apparently, it gets even worse. That’s all I know or even want to know for now. We got robbed at the very end of tour in a totally unreal, extremely sketchy series of events that still makes no sense at all, only […]

Swedes can bring the umlauts, too. Tid hail from Linköping (and Stockholm) and have a bassist named Björn, a guitarist named Söderberg, and songs titled “Synvända” and “Västanvind.” I can’t do much with the Swedish lyrics other than bask in the profusion of umlauts and cute little circles above the letter “a.” (The one in […]

Throw NWOBHM, Voivod, Eddie Van Halen, and ’70s prog into a blender, and you’d get Terror Squad. The Tokyo thrashers beat the NY rappers to the name by six years, but Chaosdragon Rising (Worldchaos, 2006) is the first I’ve heard from them. It blows me away. Any band that cites Bulldozer, Converge, and friggin’ Jake […]

The Secret I was watching UFC a few nights ago, and it occurred to me that brutal music is like mixed martial arts. One has to vary one’s attack. When bands do blastbeats for entire songs, that’s like going into a fight doing only high kicks. You look for any opening, then shoot in and […]

Fight Amp At Pitchfork, I’ve reviewed Fight Amp, a ’90s AmRep throwback whom I suspect has a Danzig fetish. The recording is tough; the guy-girl vocals are tougher. At All Music Guide, I’ve reviewed Avenger of Blood (German thrash from Las Vegas), Barbara (artful Israeli sickness), Bilk (Croatian drum ‘n’ bass ‘n’ rock), Brutus (Caesar-slaying […]

Yesterday I awoke to the sad news that Modern Life Is War is breaking up. I’ve spilled much ink on MLIW – here and here – so I won’t spill much more now. Suffice it to say that MLIW was one of the few bands that have meant anything to me. We are, we are, […]

Speaking of rats, Brazil’s Ratos de Porão (“basement rats”) began in 1981. In 1984, they released Crucificados Pelo Sistema, purportedly the first hardcore punk album in South America. You may recognize the name from Sepultura’s cover of the title track on 1993’s Refuse/Resist EP. Last year Metal Mind reissued RDP’s late-’80s/mid-’90s records on Roadrunner. 1989’s […]