Labels: Profane Existence
Review by: Joe Caithness
I have been listening to a lot of more crusty and dark styles of punk of late. Provoked was a band I came accross via Myspace of all places, but don’t be fooled by the dodgyness of the source – Provoked play great raw and scrappy modern hardcore. Equally 80s and 90s sounding, maybe not the most original blend of styles ever, but Provoked do this whole dark hc thing very well. I do however have a few problems with this record… the artwork is great, the booklet is great: very dark brooding images of an ice age, almost cartoon like but powerful all the same.
The problem is not only is the artwork all icey blue, but so is the vinyl. The thing about clear vinyl is its usually very flimsy, and the thing about flimsy vinyl is it means I got (and i did count) 15 skips during this lp, and when the drums are so pounding it can really get fustrating.
The production… hmmnn.. I couldn’t work out quite what I thought about it. It’s raw, it sounds unmixed, which sometimes can have great effect in raw punk sounds, but considering their last lp had really good production, this just doesn’t settle with me well. Drums are way out of the mix and the second guitar is lost.
Having said that, this is a good LP, it works well as an album and I have the last song stuck in my head while I am writing this, which is definitely a good thing when there are lots of bands playing this style around and I have been pounding them into my brain recently. I would say if you are into dark and bleak punk, check this out, there is info on myspace.com/provoked, but this LP definitely has to be listened to on vinyl!