My hometown Čakovec was always a fertile ground for hardcore punk bands and since nineties many great bands and great releases came from our town. Dead Dog Summer are new band in our scene with this being their debut album, but members are active and have played in many glorious bands such as Youth Against, Senata Fox, Farewell Reason, Implicite, Motorno ulje and many others. This band was created when pandemic lockdown created kind of boredom and killed the scene so, three friends decided to meet and create new music as kind of amalgamation of music they listen to and music they played in their previous bands.

As a little hardcore kid, I must admit that this kind of hardcore punk would never be my cup of tea, because I was, and still partially am, old school redneck who likes his hardcore fast and furious, but now, at 45 years of age and almost thirty years in the scene, I learned to appreciate some other styles, but this is all hardcore isn´t it? Well, Dead Dog Summer play melodic hardcore with some post hardcore influences and I am awed with production of this record, which was recorded in vocalist/guitarist Igor´s studio and mixed and mastered by Ivan Jakić who also did awesome job. There are 10 songs on this record. Lyrics are in English language and I can safely say, everyone can relate to. Some of them feel like grown up hardcore kid midlife crisis and relations about death, loss, existence, envy, selfishness, giving to others, creating today for yourself, but as you can see, those are all everyday themes that make us better persons, and that is the point of hardcore for me. I love the transformation of vocals, from great melodic singing to anguished screaming and back. My personal favorites are anthemic Today, also Time, but real gems for me are more up tempo punk rock songs like Diamonds and Thorns, No Regrets. Musicianship is tight and sometimes when listening some of the guitar work reminded me of more slower Ignite songs, minus vocals of course, also I heard some Debeli Precjednik influenced riffs in some songs, but maybe it is just me hehe. Anyway, check this one out. Support your scene and listen to great music and love your life because it is the only one you will have.

Bandcamp