Excessive Force - In Your Blood (1995)

Excessive Force was active in the mid-90s and was the project of Dan Gump, founder of Life Sentence Records (XLifeSentenceX in the 90s). My friends and I came across them sometime around in the 7th grade when we were all getting into weird, loud music with screaming that our sometimes concerned parents nevertheless viewed as an unthreatening, youthful fad. Little did they know. In Your Blood opens with 'Those Who Were,' the extended instrumental opening to which contains drumming that essentially single-handedly inspired me to start playing drums. In retrospect it isn't 'unbelieveable' or anything like that, but over the last 16 years this album has held up better than most metallic hardcore from the 90s. It still sounds pretty damn good, especially I think in the guitar tone, and the album throughout has its moments of rage that still raise the pulse. Rounding out the whole endeavor is a surprisingly mature sense of dark melody that introduces atmosphere and emotion to a genre of music that is prone to being light on the dynamics and melody. Also, it doesn't take long to notice that these guys were militantly straight edge to a perhaps uncomfortable degree, but if anything that just lends credibility to the band's vitriol. Don't miss the extensive but rad use of gang vocals on 'No Excuses.'

DL

Extinction - Hypocrisy Breeds Traitors

Extinction, from Chicago and active in the 90s, played beefy but surprisingly pissed hardcore with a metallic edge, falling somewhere between early Hatebreed and Integrity, amongst other great Victory bands from the mid to late 90s. Extinction themselves weren't on Victory, though members have gone on to do big things in a surprising array of bands, from Fallout Boy (wtf?) to Suicide File and The Hope Conspiracy. If you listen to one song on Hypocrisy Breeds Traitors it should be Replica. That song was posted on plus/minus records' website when I was in 8th or 9th grade and my friends and I would listen to it repeatedly. It's oddly catchy for having a minimum amount of melody. I'll also add that I really like how the drums sound on the recordings, especially the snare. Yeah.

DL

Mörser - 10,000 Bad Guys Dead

Mörser is from Germany and they're very pissed off at something, though I haven't the faintest idea what. Maybe it's because they have two bassists, two vocalists, two guitarists, and a drummer, which is silly. Still, I can forgive them because I like their music. And look at their goddamn fancy German suites. Dapper Dan Men, I'm telling you.  I'm also not sure what the deal is with the album title. Maybe it's funny to Germans. Moving on, Mörser's sound is hard to explain. Sometimes they remind me of Bolt Thrower, sometimes they remind me of late 90s metalcore, and sometimes they have their own sound. They can be thrashy, sort of, though mostly I'd just describe their music as pummeling. German brethren Acme and Systral are somewhat apt comparisons, though this isn't surprising because there's some member overlap between the three bands (one of the vocalists and one of the bassists). Unlike Bolt Thrower, their music is not catchy and very ugly. It's tempting to use the word 'sludge'  to describe their sound, but it just doesn't seem to fit with the blast beats. That's part of what makes them intriguing, I suppose. 

DL 

Catharsis/Newborn Split (2001)

Catharsis was a great metallic hardcore band from Georgia. Their singer Brian was (and still is as far as I know) an active anarchist who published the legendary underground zine InsideFront and started Crimethinc, an anarchist collective that publishes literature and releases music. You can find their stickers on bikes or street signs in most major cities (look for crust punks).  Besides this split, Catharsis have two amazing full-length albums--Samsara and Passion--that I highly recommend, but on this split it is the Hungarian emotive hardcore/punk band Newborn who really shine. Each of Newborn's four songs are mini-epics that traverse the history of hardcore, from its punk roots to contemporary post-hardcore, all the while maintaining a youthful energy that is impossible to deny. Their musicianship is stellar on all fronts and the production is top notch. The Catharsis track, Arsonist's Prayer, is nine-minutes of solid and somewhat innovative hardcore that is good but not great, at least relative to their other work. It's all about Newborn on this one.

DL

Fall - s/t ep

In ninth grade I began to play drums with a group of kids from my high school and we called ourselves Fall.  I recently found the mp3s from our only 'studio' recording (the studio was a tiny, cramped basement in Pontiac) and I thought to myself, what the heck, I'll post it.  The production is raw, but we put everything we had to give into those songs and when I listen to them I can still remember how much fun the whole experience was.  We even got to open for such rockstar acts as NineShocksTerror, Twelve Tribes, FaceDownInShit, and Zegota, all of which I had to convince my parents to let me play.

Fall was a bizarre mix of metalcore, melodic emo, and crusty grindcore.  Bizarre, like I said, but for better or for worse we didn't really sound like anyone else.  I still think the first twenty seconds of the second track is super catchy and the vocal patterns through track three, titled 'Rust,' are very intense.  Track four is still my favorite song of ours.  If only I could remember its name.  And yes, that is acoustic guitar in the fifth track 'If Only I could Believe.'  We really liked In Flame's The Jester Race.

Perhaps our greatest moment was when we were disqualified from the Berkley High School battle of bands. After having his amp unplugged by the vice-principal due to kids 'moshing,' Glen asked her how would she like it if he unplugged her kid and the question didn't go over so well. So here is the self-titled Fall ep, which circulated in crusty kid circles from Detroit to Lansing and everywhere in between.

DL

Invocator - Weave the Apocalypse (1993)

I can't recall where or why I first heard Invocator's "Weave the Apocalypse" but I do remember immediately thinking that the first track, "Through the Nether to the Sun," was one of the coolest tracks of European melodic metal I'd heard. More importantly, I still feel that way.  I found later that what's even better is that the whole damn album is great.  And yet despite all of this, Invocator still remains a relatively obscure blip on the metal map, far out-shadowed by At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity, In Flames, etc. If you have a look on Amazon.com right now, there is a copy of this cd selling for $57.00.  Yup.  My guess is that they just sounded too different from the aforementioned crop of Scandinavian melodic death metal bands. Maybe too much of an American influence, even.  It's not hard to imagine these guys really liking Pantera and Morbid Angel.  And really, in terms of technicality and musicianship, I think Invocator had just about everyone in Gothenburg beat. Incidentally, Per Jensen, drummer extraordinaire from The Haunted,  played drums on "Weave the Apocalypse."

You probably want to know what they sound like. If I had to come up with a label I might call them melodic technical groove thrash with hardcore-leaning vocals that sound like a pissed seventeen year old. You should probably just check it out.  As I said, if you at least give "Through the Nether to the Sun" a chance (especially pay attention 1:45 to 2:05 as it is an exceptionally rad progressions of rhythm-shifting riffs) I think you'll find it worth your while.

Also, it has some rad Dan Seagrave artwork.

DL

Silence - Echoes of Depression (2004)

This is for Adrian, the great frenchman pictured above who said he'd pay attention to my blog only if I posted some d-beat hardcore. I don't know much about Silence except that they were from Lublin, Poland, they played excellent dark and somewhat melodic d-beat/crust hardcore, and that they are no longer a band.  Echoes of Depression is their only full length, though they did release a 10" and a 7", both of which are available for free download at their myspace here.

DL