Remember the mid 90-ies when bands like Downset and similar bands prowled the clubs delivering the energetic mixture of rap and hardcore punk with a metal twist to the hordes of ravenous kids? Well, Smokebomb from Brussels, Belgium remind me just of that wild times. I listened and reviewed their debut release for this zine.

These guys grew and developed their experience in the Belgian hardcore punk scene, until they formed this band in 2017. to spread around their Smokecore, like they call their music, a mixture of hardcore punk and rap with metal guitar hooks. This debut demo tape contains 7 songs. Personally, I am not some avid fan of such music, I never was really, but this sounds fresh and energetic with a lot of brutal mosh hardcore parts, some fast pure punk hardcore song structures and rap vocal lines. I would only love that the singer sounds more diverse, I don˙t know, somehow I got the feeling that he is better at pure hardcore shouting parts than rapping parts. One song that I must put above all the others is Underground Warrior which was a real ripper with awesome blastbeats, even death metal influences parts, hardcore and pure rage. As the record progressed I started to like it more and more with The Way We Do It being another example of great song. Also, Face The Fact was cool for me. This is a good debut and if you are a fan of such music, go grab one tape and contact the guys.

7,5/10

https://www.facebook.com/SmokeBombBXL/

https://smokebombbxl.bandcamp.com/album/ninja-tape-bmb-rcds001