Six…No Skips, a monthly recommendation series from 185 Miles South. I’ll tread through the 50 years of punk and hardcore to pluck out some records that I think are good enough to merit you giving them a spin. ‘70s punk singles to one of the best of the 2020s, I got you.
Paid substackers: there is a podcast at the bottom behind the dreaded paywall (ha HA ha ha ha).
Patreons: the podcast is available in the Patreon portal and RSS feed
The Rude Kids hail from Hagsätra, a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden, and you’d be pressed to find a punk 7” from 1978 that sounds as mean as this. Maybe Slash Your Face gives it a run for its money but I don’t know what else would. They kind of sound like Black Flag mixed with the hardest elements of the Buzzcocks to my smooth brain.
Vocalist Björn Olle Eriksson aka Böna’s voice is a huge part of that. It’s raw, gruff, and almost hoarse—you can feel his vocal chords straining and shredding. The bass breaks and choppy drumming, paired with the starts and stops on “Stranglers” are a big part too. The second song, “Punk Will Never Die,” ups the pace a notch and the chorus kind of reminds me of “No Reply.”
Tragically Böna died in a car wreck in ‘83.
Other than Screaming For Change and Slave, is this the best California hardcore record of the 2nd half of the ‘80s? Maybe it’s in a duel with The Power Of Expression depending on my mood, but most days Ashes To Ashes takes it. I can never tell if this LP is cannon or criminally underrated, but I will say that most people who I see eye to eye with musically love this record.
1987-1989 is kind of a weird era of hardcore. Zooming out and looking at things globally, here are the buckets that I think dominated (quality wise, not necessarily in popularity):
Revelation Records / NYHC / Straight Edge
I’m putting all of this in a bucket—basically Rev 1-10, all the CBGBs bands of the time (Killing Time, Breakdown, Leeway, etc.), and all the bands across the US that were kind of emulating either NYHC or Youth of Today. Outside of New York and the Rev catalog, I’m thinking Hard Stance, Against The Wall, Unit Pride, etc. in California and outlier bands like Powerhouse in Florida, Brotherhood in Seattle, and Wrecking Crew in Boston.
Japan / Birth of Burning Spirits
This is the birth of Burning Spirits. Bands like Poison Arts, Chicken Bowels, and later Death Side, Nightmare, Tetsu Arrey, and Bastard are all kicking off. And they’re joined by vets who are arguably putting out their best material like Crow and Lip Cream.
UK fastcore
Outside of the grind and crust that were percolating, the Brits had the fastcore scene popping off: Heresy, Larm, Ripcord, etc.
Birth of Powerviolence in CA
This possibly overlaps a bit with the SXE/Rev stuff, but you get the first No Comment 7” along with the Infest 7”/LP, and the Capitalist Casualties demo.
Sweden
You get No Security tapes, 7”s, and a split LP, the first two Totalitar 7”s, the first Svart Sno 7”, and Really Fast Vol. 4 comes out in 1988.
For outliers, you have Poison Idea in Portland putting out War All The Time and some of their best songs on those singles that land between that and Feel The Darkness. Then there’s Bad Religion putting out Suffer in 1988. RKL put out Rock N Roll Nightmare in ‘87—a record that shreds harder than anything not metal in the era.
But what’s the best old school ‘83/’84 style hardcore going on the West Coast? It’s gotta be Final Conflict and Ashes To Ashes is the LP that proves it. To me it sounds a lot like Crucifix Dehumanization or The Varukers Another Religion, Another War. Every song rips except “Shattered Mirror” and only one song (barely) breaks the three-minute mark, “Constant Fear,” is a total mindfuck that flies by and feels like it’s 90 seconds.
Eight of the 14 songs on here were on their 1985 demo, but this recording just sounds better. It was recorded by David Kory who did Infest Slave, Visual Discrimination Step Back and Listen, and No For An Answer A Thought Crusade. Pushead put it out and there’s a big ass booklet. Just a crucial hardcore record that YOU should own, or at least jam on the reg.
“Boxed In” is a GOATed NYHC song. If you haven’t heard it, drop everything and listen to it in the link above. That wasn’t enough? Listen to the version on their 1990 demo, their 1993 demo, their 1996 CD, or their 2003 12”. Want a different take? Hatebreed covered it in 2009, and Terror covered it in 2010. It’s basically the “Disconnected” of hardcore. It fuckin’ rules.
The rest of the Subzero 7” is pretty killer too, but it definitely lives in the “Boxed In” shadow. “Waiting” sounds like Merauder a full two years before their demo dropped. “Ice Age” sounds like it could’ve been a missing MTB off of Age of Quarrel. “One Too Many Times” might be too ambitious for me but that ‘90s NYHC bounce is infectious.
Mid-2000s Boston hardcore band with a slew of modern hardcore heavyweights. Like the cover says, it’s a 10 song record. This is hardcore in its true spiritual format: a bunch of blazers packed onto a 7”. No song is over two minutes and only two are over one minute, but this isn’t a dollar bin fastcore album from the turn of the century—every song has a different structure and they never fall into the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/breakdown formula. Not only that, but they tuck in some really good little leads in a style that has never really embraced solos.
If you’re in a subpar hardcore band and you want to write one winner, just copy “Boiling Over.”
Mid-2010s underrated classic from a different slew of Boston heavyweights, this time it’s dudes from Bloodkrow Butcher, Savageheads, The Massacred, etc. They sound like Slapshot mixed with some of the faster stuff off of This Is Boston, Not LA like the FU’s or Jerry’s Kids. The record starts midtempo and then they blast you with “Give Me War” in the two slot which is a total ripper. It’s kind of like “Overdose” off the first Boston Strangler LP—same slot, same intensity. Just S-tier level hardcore punk with big hooks. “Stay the fuck away from me”…come on. Chef’s kiss. I ranked this one #27 on my best records of the entire decade list.
Hopefully Mike Cheese doesn’t kill me for saying this is the most listenable Gehenna record since the demo. I don’t think he set out to be part of anything “listenable,” but good god, man…this record is an easy listen. In the era of streaming, if you make it through a whole record without wanting to skip tracks, that’s gotta be one of the biggest compliments possible, right? And when I say “listenable,” it’s not that it sounds meek. It’s super punishing. Tonally it’s totally brüt in tone, and while the guitar playing leans early ‘90s death metal, the mix is more classic ‘90s black metal with guitars high in the mix and kinda buried vocals and drums.
The LP starts with two bonafide ragorz, “Where The Worms Don’t Die” into “Like Maggots.” Then they hit us with what’s mostly a midtempo banger on “Return To Simpler Times” when it isn’t being sliced up by a scissor beat. My favorite track is “Know War / No Peace,” the first track off the B-side. It fades in all “It’s The Limit” style then comes in on a 3/4 fast beat. The mosh is a total mindfuck. It’s a midtempo breakdown but the timing sounds slightly off in a purposeful way, which makes you feel like you have vertigo. It bounces back and forth between midtempo and a slow headbob, then hits you with a nice solo and ends on a “fuck the police.” Hell yeah.
The record ends big with “Negative Hardcore,” a pounding final song that goes back and forth between tom smashing savagery and a heavy droning verse with an earwormed out guitar lick. Hypnotic. Savage. Listenable.
Want to hear me and Kev talk about all these records? Here’s the podcast:
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.