Formed in 2018 under the Dead History moniker, Phoenix, Arizona’s Common Wounds’ respective members are drawn from the likes of Run With the Hunted, Landmine Marathon, Suicide Nation, Seas Will Rise, and War Tongue while All Night Blood their first full-length release follows on from last year’s S/T debut EP. Continue reading
Sweden’s Wolfbrigade occupies a very specific place in hard-core. The band’s 11th album Life Knife Death might be their first for Metal Blade Records, but it does not venture far from the sonic ground they covered on the previous ten albums. This aligns them closely to Motorhead in a few ways, the first being they are steadfast in their dedication to burly hardcore champs. It charges at you with all the Punk and rocking fury you might expect from this band who infuses Entombed’s dense guitar tone with Motorhead’s reckless energy. The raw-throated vocals are more Lemmy-influenced than metal. There is a scant trace of the stomping sections you might expect from hardcore, though this is way heavier than punk, thus making it hardcore. Ten albums in they know what they are doing.Continue reading
One of the most exciting bands in the brutal/slam death metal genre today, Peeling Flesh, continue on their way up from the underground in Oklahoma with their latest release, The G Code (Unique Leader Records). In under a half hour, the slams and rap interludes will have your head spinning out of control, smashing into the walls of your room. What’s more, there are quite a few guests on the record to further cement how far Peeling Flesh have come and how much the scene respects them.Continue reading
On August 10th OTTTO and Bastardane – both prominent groups within the modern hard rock scene – came to Chicago in light of their current Reconquest Tour. The two rock outfits are no strangers to touring together, as both bands played together the previous summer as well. The Reconquest Tour sees both Bastardane and OTTTO in new fashions, but when it comes to each group’s signature sound, talent and onstage energy – those matters remain the same.Continue reading
Syracuse, New York will be familiar to fans of Straight-Edge Hardcore thanks to Earth Crisis and Trail of Lies can thus be seen as a continuation of this lineage.
Not content with the tunes created over the previous couple of decades with previous band Victims, members turned to new pastures with the latest hardcore punk collective, Alarm! Crossing over the sounds of melodic hardcore with previous endeavours in crust punk, Alarm! are set to make an explosive hit onto the Swedish punk scene with their debut self-titled effort via Armageddon Label.
Sometimes the day presents challenges to us all and we just need to swing haymakers in a pit. For days worse than that, there’s Missing Link. One of the most “unga bunga” ignorant Hardcore bands I’ve ever seen play (American Hardcore Festival 2023). Getting the chance to review their full-length debut, Watch Me Bleed (Triple B Records), is an absolute privilege. Eleven tracks (twelve if you count the hidden track) of unadulterated violence and aggression are going to stampede into your ears and not apologize for the disturbance.Continue reading
As the summer in the Northern Hemisphere approaches, I always find a nice doom or sludge album really sets the mood for a day of yard work, or just sitting on the deck with a cold beer. The new album from Thou, Umbilical (Sacred Bones Records), may not fit that exact moment, but it certainly would fit in for after the sun sets and the flames rise in the firepits and the tips of our joints. Continue reading
In this new episode, we chatted with the new Chicago-based extreme metal duo Wretched Blessing released their debut self-titled EP! Featuring members of Yautja, Immortal Bird, Coliseum, and other projects, the duo of Rae Amitay and Kayhan Vaziri are united by their love of all things, heavy, and complex, but also curious to step out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves. In this wide-ranging chat with Keefy about the formation of the group, the writing process, a track-by-track breakdown, the artwork, hot takes about Chicago living and much more!Continue reading
Kentucky Hardcore stalwarts Knocked Loose continue to march forward in their vision of beatdown in the form of their third full-length, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To (Pure Noise). Twenty-seven minutes of cathartic aggression laced with panic riffs of nu-metal fame and climaxing at soul-crushing breakdowns is all the band needs to prove their rightful spot in the upper echelon of modern Hardcore. With three absolute banger singles put out before release of the album, the rest of the tracks need to stand out on their own as well, which they do.Continue reading