Blood For Blood from Boston are such influence for me with their great street hardcore with balls, heartbroken and street life lyrics and great melodies. Blood For Blood are dead, but Rob Lind continued the fight with Ramallah. This new record contains 8 songs of heartbroken, strong and emotional songs. This is maybe not your fast paced straightforward hardcore punk, but it is streetpunk oi hardcore at its finest. While listening to these songs, I had goosebumps on my skin and my bald head. It made me pump my fist in the air, but also made me cry with sorrow, and in the end it brought kinda hardcore catharsis in my blackened heart. I totally saw myself in the lyrics in the songs, in the melody and guitar work, so this record holds such a special place in my heart. Songs like acoustic gentle Bye Bye or the title song, or many Bruisers and Blood For Blood hommages to the lyrics like the rendition of City Boy and fantastic The Times We Had, make me wanna listen all over again and again. This record connects the glorious odes to the past with the future and the persistence in the scene. I am currently at the most difficult time of my life and countless times in last couple of months I thought just to end it all, but this record serves as my therapy, fucked up therapy, but still worth living. Classic!
German horrorpunk legends The Other are back with a brand new studio album. I love this band, they are my favorite European horrorpunk band beside The Crimson Ghosts. Last couple of albums, they moved a bit from traditional horrorpunk sound making the songwriting more complex, adding more metal and industrial elements along with some gothic that was there from day one. Hey, but that is the beauty of horrorpunk scene, being so diverse and original, adding different elements to the basic punkrock.
This time, I have a feeling that The Other somehow returned to the more old shool sounding batch of songs, being more straightforward horrorpunk rather than metal and industrial, yet retaining all the gothic influences with Rod`s recognizable beautiful vocals, superb harmonies on backing vocals, anthemic riffs and choruses that make you wanna listen to this album over and over again. The songs that somehow stand out to me as being fantastic although rest of the material is strong too, are Turn It Louder, Vampire Girl, Fading Away and The Silence After The First Snow. This is awesome album by the legendary band.
Najveribest were already featured on the pages of this zine in the series about the bands from my hometown, who described their history in their own words. What can I say? This album was and still is one of my personal favorite records from this area, since it came out on cassette 24 years ago on now defunct Barbarian records. I also remember Najveribest having so energetic shows that I loved so much, as a fan in front of the stage and sharing the stage with my then band Corewar. They were really ahead of their time with their hardcore/crossover equally mixing metal and punk roots in their awesome songs with lyrics in Croatian and English, some about fun and bullshit, some really personally themed stuff and anti-war which was so important back in the nineties in this country. Songs like Bar nešto, Problematika, Mučenje i glupost still are my favorites but also Go!, Fuckin War or Brother Hates Brother too. Now, 24 years later, thanks to Bero from Ill in the Head Records who re-released this gem and Ivan from Kut Sobe who did remastering, also Inspirited Media who did graphic solutions and design, this gem can shine again in all its glory stronger than ever. Go get this one if you are into hardcore crossover with balls, energy and attitude.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 