Four and a half decades ago, Agnostic Front headbutted their way onto the New York punk and hardcore scene, rose quickly to the top, and despite a four year split in the nineties, stayed there. With songs built on the foundations of social injustice, corruption and inequality, AF might have changed musically over the years but their messaging and their warnings have not. Continue reading
Spiral In A Straight Line (Rise Records) is Touché Amoré’s sixth album. They are not only more confident in who they are as a band, but continuing the journey fussy they are not capable of explosive emotional outbursts as heard in the song. This is handled in a more Punk way, with less overt emoting. The more polished production compliments the progression of their creative path, with the guitars being where growth is most evident. On a song like “Hal Ashby” they embrace the late nineties all over again thanks to the jangle of the guitars. This feels the most like what we once called Emo with a punk drive that thankfully owes more to Hot Water Music than Blink-182. 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