Podcast: Ep. 33 - A Sad Day for Die Hard

Lost Tribe Podcast

 Ep. 33 - A Sad Day to Die Hard

In this episode half of the crew sit down to discuss aging Canadian hardcore and the travesty that is the new Die Hard movie.  We mean it.  It's fucking terrible.  After that we talk about drugs (Lance Armstrong), murder (Oscar Pistorious), and mass murder (Christopher Dorner) in the news as well as how the sky is falling in Russia.

Get it on iTunes or here.

Review: Left for Dead - Devoid of Everything

Left for Dead

Devoid of Everything

A389 Recordings

Anyone familiar with Left for Dead knows that it’s nearly a foregone conclusion that a review written about them by a hardcore fan is going to be glowingly positive. So let’s just get this out of the way: I love Left for Dead.  And yes, I giggled like a school girl when I found out they were releasing this discography and recording new material. Also, anyone familiar with Hamilton, Ontario will not be surprised to find out that there was a time in the late-90s/early 00s that this city consistently produced the most angry, fast, metallic hardcore Canada had to offer.  The epitome of this working-class-teen aggression came from Left for Dead, led by Chris Colohan (Swarm/Cursed/Burning Love) and Jeff Beckman (Chokehold/Haymaker/Pick Your Side).

My only issue with Left for Dead up to this point was their piss-poor production.  Now, as a fan of both hardcore and black metal, I’m really not caught off-guard by bad recordings and production, but I always knew that it was an injustice that such a furious band had such flat, tinny sounding recordings.  Fortunately, thanks to a complete remastering from the original ¼” reels by Kevin Bernsten and James Plotkin, the days of Left for Dead sounding like garbage are over!  I’ve never considered myself an audiophile in the sense that I don’t obsess over sound quality (I either listen to music on my $100 record player or on my phone at 128kpbs) but the change in quality between Devoid of Everything and Splitting Heads (or any other release) is unbelievable.  And to anyone who is about to get nostalgic and talk about how they hate remasterings...you are wrong.  Flat out.  Devoid of Everything is the best that Left for Dead has ever sounded, on any format.  It’s heavier, crunchier, warmer, cleaner, and finally gives this band the sound they’ve always deserved.

In other words, you can now listen to songs like “Eight Floors Above”, “Who Do You Know?” and “Left For Dead” and they will be even more crushing and aggressive-sounding then they previously were...and these are some of the most destructive, scream-your-guts-out confrontational songs I had ever heard....and now they are remastered and even more obscenely heavy.

Go buy it now!

Review: Pick Your Side - Snakes and Ladders

Pick Your Side

Snakes & Ladders

RSR/Hate Ape Productions

Tracklisting:

1. Thru Veins

2. Bleeding Out

3. This is Not a Test

4. Throne of Privilege

5. But Wait!!

6. Don’t Cry (Neil Young cover)

7. Snakes and Ladders

When Pick Your Side started putting out music last year, I was simply relieved that something violent, angry and Haymaker-esque was coming out of Hamilton again.  Beyond that, I honestly didn’t expect much, let alone steady output and even semi-regular gigs to attend.  Fortunately, the boys in PYS seem to have some momentum behind them because they are back with their second 7”, and from what I understand, will be recording a 2^nd LP for A389 in the not-too-distant future.  

This offering, Snakes and Ladders, picks up where Survival Prayer and Let Me Show You How Democracy Works left off.  The first four tracks offer up the same vitriolic, thrashy hardcore that they have become known for, and don’t away from subject matter ranging from betrayal (“Picture your life as a knife fight and you just got stabbed in the guts”) to middle class privilege (“...point blame in protest in the words you sing your bullshit songs, won’t change a thing.”). 

The next couple tracks, “But Wait!!” and “Don’t Cry” reveal the metal/sludge roots that this band also has.  “But Wait!!” is a nice mix of hardcore and metal, which just adds a dynamic element to the record that is welcomed, but “Don’t Cry” might take a little for some PYS fans to get used to.  Why, you ask?  Because it’s a droning, sludgy Neil Young cover that clocks in at over 7 minutes.  Yup, you heard me right.  I really enjoyed it from the 2^nd listen onwards (I was a bit too thrown off by it at first), and love that this band truly doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of them or what they should be doing.

You can’t buy it yet (unless you go to one of their shows on their European tour or at Not Dead Yet Fest in Toronto), but you can listen to it here.

Review: Burning Love - Rotten Thing to Say

Burning Love

Rotten Thing to Say

Southern Lord Records

Chris Colohan has never had any problem getting good reviews from the hardcore community.  Fronting bands like Left for Dead, The Swarm, Countdown to Oblivion, and of course Cursed, his place as one of the most respected men in hardcore has been both well-earned and relatively unquestionable.  As a result, it becomes increasingly daunting to criticize the man’s work. 

I say all of this as a caveat to this review because I want readers to understand that I know that not everything Colohan touches is gold, and he isn’t in fact some sort of golden god...but Rotten Thing to Say honestly proves that if this man is singing for a band then it’s a smart move to sit up and take notice.  Well some write off Burning Love as the “not as heavy as Cursed” band, but if you throw out any expectations (good or bad) about what this band should be, then you are left with one of the tightest, most interesting bands in hardcore.

Blending rock, punk, hardcore, and metal, Rotten Thing to Say really never lets up in any meaningful way.  I’ve already gushed over songs like Karla in another review and on our podcast (thanks for all the downloads so far), but coupled with Hateful Comforts, the Body, and Pig City I & II, this album is an impressive improvement over their much-played-on-my-ipod debut album.

Another reason that I love this album is rooted in something I hate about the internet.  With the proliferation of websites like Reddit, a virulent, thuggish, and ill-informed kind of atheism has firmly taken hold within various online communities.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some atheism...but I’ve always tried to be an atheist without being a complete and total Bill-O’Reilly-style dick about it.  Songs like Superstitious Friend and Made out of Apes help show that people can express themselves eloquently and challenge the beliefs of others without seeming as bad as the fundamentalist you oppose.  

p.s. I put up the Toronto record release show cover because it's even better than the actual album cover.  Fuck Rob Ford.

Buy this album.  Seriously, do it!  Buy 3 copies and give 2 away to your friends.

Review: Countdown to Oblivion - Discography

Countdown to Oblivion

Discography

A389 Recordings

Track Listing:

1. Open Season on Hecklers (Part 3) Laso in Ireland
2. Spray P.E.C.
3. To An End
4. Take it Apart
5. Poster Children for Family Values
6. No Brainer
7. Up in Flames
8. The Way It Is
9. I’ll Do Anything
10. More Dead Kennedys (a.k.a. Single Bullshit Theory)
11. Poster Children For Family Values
12. Four Alarm Fire At Lockport Gambino Ford
13. The Way It Is
14. Take It Apart
15. Spray P.E.C.
16. The Fest Sex I Never Had

Let’s start off by getting one thing out of the way.  This is a Chris Colohan-related band.  They are all incredible and I’m not interested in arguing whether The Swarm is superior to Burning Love or if Left for Dead was better than Cursed.  It seems to be a never-ending debate within hardcore circles and such a discussion would diminish and distract from the task at hand:  Talking about how good the Countdown to Oblivion Discography is!

Countdown to Oblivion (or CTO if you are a lazy typist like me) originated as a quazi-side project for some of Ontario Hardcore’s elite in the late 1990’s, including members of Legion, One Blood, Rammer, Teen Crud Combo, Anti-Flag, and The Swarm.  While all of the material that appears on this record was released on a variety of 7 inches and a demo tape, it’s great that Dom from A389 (also a late 90’s Ontario Hardcore alumnus) was able to put it together on a convenient and comprehensive release.

Getting to the actual music, songs like Spray P.E.C. and Poster Children for Family Values exemplify just how well CTO was able to blend pissed-off hardcore and metallic (re: Slayer) riffs.  An entire discography without a song over 3 minutes, CTO was able to capture an attitude and style of music that many other bands attempted, but few were able to master this well.  With two vocalists (Stephe and Chris), CTO was able to deliver vocals so fast and so angry that no single vocalist could possibly deliver (especially live).  The only ‘drawback’ is that because it is a collection of all of CTO’s material, including their demo, there are several duplicate songs.  While some people may be annoyed by this, I don’t see it as a problem at all, as even the duplicates are from different recordings (demo vs. 7inch) and no true ‘discography’ can claim to be complete without including everything there is to offer, even multiple versions of the same song.

If you are a record nerd like me you’ll also love the physical presentation of this record.  The vinyl release came with gatefold packaging and a retrospective look at the band and their history by Colohan himself.  Those of us who ordered early were even able to get the badass-looking blood splatter (red splatter on grey) record, which really completes the package.  If you don’t care about the aesthetics of an album then just download it off of itunes or something.  No harm, no foul.  Either way, it’s in your best interest to own this album.

Buy it!