Illinois has always been fertile ground for great melodic pop punk and punk rock so Real Friends are hailing from there and this e.p. contains three songs, one being an acoustic version. This is ultra melodic punk rock with pop punk sensibility which successfully mixes aggression of punk riffs with melody, harmony in multiple vocals and great lyrics. Always Lose is my favorite of these three songs and this little e.p. just engaged my appetite for listening to this band more and more. Now I am going to check out their other releases for some more quality pop punk.
Sweden has always been great fertile ground for awesome bands and Tear Them Down are from Gothenburg and this is their second full length album. This band has been in the scene since 2010 and did many European tours and also went to Japan. This one features 13 songs of hardcore punk mayhem. It is a nice old school hardcore punk with 80ies influences, fast and strong to make your fist pump in the air with joy and energy in your heart. But, there are also some I would say garage punk, melodic skatepunk and more skatecore influences. My personal favorites are anthems like Sacrifice and also Total Control which I am sure are live favorites to sing along, stage dive and bring smile to your face. Vocals are harsh, shouted in hardcore way, but also transform to more melodic singing and it works perfectly along with harsh and singalong backing vocals. Some of the songs from this album like As We Go Down I listened to over and over again to check out how great they are. Fantastic hardcore album!
Dagger Threat released second full length album and they just continue with brutality and carnage where the predecessor stopped. That means these intro Prologue and ten songs punch you in the gut with a mixture of metallic hardcore that we used to call new school back in the nineties and more modern beatdown hardcore with sharp precise guitar riffs, moshing parts and beatdown stop and go drums, topped with brutal vocals screamed at the top of the lungs plus some more gang backing vocals with might and energy reverberating throughout the album as a whole. Usually I am not so avid keen fan of such hardcore, being more of a old school asshole but when it also incorporates some clean sung melodic parts like in one of my favorites Wither, also Faint. I love that mixture of brutality and melody and it works fine for me. Lyrics are more personal and help you deal with your own demons, at least they did that way for me. This is a fine brutality lesson, so go for it!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 