Swedish band's first demo. Low Fi recording of 6 songs. Musically they're early 80's Swedish Hardcore in the MOB 47 or Anti-Cimex style, though obviously not as good. The vocals are a bit more modern/metallish but not as bad as the sadly popular death metal woff-woff. If the singer used his real voice it would sound a lot better.
Lyrics cover McDonalds, Cops, Politicians, Media, Nazis and the Army, so nothing new here, which is probably what they were aiming for. They're ok, more PUNK than PC.
The cover drawing is more or less copied straight from a mid-70's comic by Jan Lööf to give it that vintage look.
There's a thin line between Karaoke and Old School and though this isn't bad they could use a lot more originality. The poor recording isn't a problem, in fact it probably works in their favour. They're pretty young and as a first try it's not bad. I don't mind the retro thing if the songs are good enough. Hopefully they will be next time.
After the pub last night we went back to my place and I played this tape to fellow Discharge fans and they thought it was great, but we were all pretty drunk by then, so check 'em out yourself.
This demo includes the five songs from their soon to be released first EP plus one more song from a forthcoming split 7''.
Let's just first say that this band sounds great. Their main asset is vocalist Erica whose voice is a good mix of punk rock anger and melody. She sounds a lot like Beki Bondage did c:a Stand Strong Stand Proud album and the music is pretty close to good old Vice Squad too. Catchy UK 82 with a touch of americana maybe.
They do a pretty faithful version of the Avengers' Open Your Eyes. I think recording cover versions is somewhat pointless unless you completely change the song, but at least they show good taste, right?
The lyrics to their originals are well written. Proles is straight out of Orwell's 1984 and Taxed To Live is obviously aimed at the government, but the rest seem more personal, centering around fear, death and paranoia from what sounds like a girl's perspective. Not very political but not meaningless either. Erica could sing the phone book and still sound great.
Downsides are that the drums (or drum production) sometimes sounds a little too metal and there's the odd extra part here and there in the songs that I could have done without, but that's no biggie.
The first 200 copies of the EP will be on coloured vinyl so hurry up, Harry, 'cause this is gonna sell fast once people hear them.
Great album title. We're all bored with kids in smelly dredds buying 'D.I.Y. or die' patches and calling bands sell-outs if they make a 2 cent profit on their 7''. D.S.-13 runs a distro and they're just about the only ones who haven't tried to rip us off.
This is fast hardcore. Old School as in Good School, no metal, no fancy musician-type stuff. 22 tracks is usually a few too many but they pull it off this time. The strenght of the songs keep it from turning in to one big HC blurr. They do two covers (Garbage Pale Kids and Germs) but with this many originals I'm not gonna complain.
The lyrics are a healthy mix of pissed off politics and fun stuff - you remember FUN, dontcha? - but a little on the heard-it-a-million-times-before side. And there's the odd lyric I don't like at all - I Don't Wanna Be A Skinhead is one. Not all skins are fag bashing nationalists, you know.
Cover by Pushead of USHC/Misfits/Metallica fame and a nice over all package. It's got a lyric sheet with comments on the songs and it's available on clear vinyl.
The best thing they've done since the first 7''. B.U.Y. or die.
And fukk the kids.
