Time for some Southern California skatecore SINCE WE WERE KIDS! to grace the pages of this webzine. There are 16 songs on this beauty and it is all fast skate hardcore punk with angry, shouted, but sometimes melodic vocals. This is old school par excellence. The musicianship is tight and the record as a whole is an energetic bomb in itself. This is hardcore like we were used since we were kids hehe. The songs are short but hit straightforward in your head and melt your face off with their energy and blistering guitars, topped with fast drumming and angry vocals. I tried to find and name some personal favorites, but the record as one undivided whole is superb, so you will find your own favorites, because I love this record, every song from beginning of ‘Counterfeit’ through all those short bombs to ‘Intense Energy’ and ‘Winner’s Life’. So, I guess I still named some of the favorites on this record. Superb, my recommendation,
Remark are hailing from Quebec, Canada and this is their debut full length album. This band started as an online project of two friends, namely Marco Gurtner – guitar and vocals plus Richard Cloutier – bass and drums. There are 15 songs in all on this one, I must say that I am pleased with how this album turned out. This is fast melodic, anthemic hardcore punk with great harmonies, vocal lines and good songwriting throughout the album, there are no fillers on this one. There are couple of really great melancholic melodies that reminded me of band from Serbia called Six Pack, like awesome song ‘The Process Of Learning’, the title song of the album. In other songs, music of Remark reminds me a bit of Bad Religion in their best era, nineties style Bad Religion, also Swedish No Fun At All and Ten Foot Pole. Lyrics are in three languages, English, French and German, so this is really great international little of a melodic punk jewel of a record. My other personal favorites are ‘Compass’, ‘Unser Land’ and ‘New Horizons’. This is one of the better albums I have listened to in last couple of weeks.
Possessed Politicians is currently a one man band from Frederick, Maryland, USA. You know, sometimes when you sail through the sea of great and good bands you step on a mine. This is one of such mines. There are six songs on this one, This is really a short one with longest song being just one minute thirty seconds long, all others are shorter. The music is not so bad melodic hardcore punk with many rehashed riffs and nothing special, but not bad. Vocals are just killing me, man. The guy sings through some electronic effect or bad microphone and although there are songs like ‘I Can’t Understand The Lyrics’ or ‘Rambo Hates Vietnamese People’, which are pretty funny titles and lyrics are all about humor and black humor, this one is plain bad. Hope it will improve with future releases.
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