Review by: Thomas Strawbridge
The Solidarity Pact appears to be a bunch of right wing authoritarian types playing mediocre mosh hardcore while attempting to spread some kind of conservative values to ‘the kids’. KIDDING!!
This album starts off with a short sample of a jazz trumpet, but its about as far removed from Indian Summer as you’ll get. I don’t know how many hardcore records i’ll buy or hear this year, but i’m almost certain that none of them will top this. Seriously, this kills me every time i put it on. The Solidarity Pact play fast, furious hardcore that has an overwhelmingly positive message, and strong sense of melody. Youth crew? Perhaps, but there’s far more here than a few chords and a fingerpoint at work here.
There are 13 tracks here all told, one of which is a brief sample, but no briefer than some of the songs – the album flys by in 25 minutes, which includes some words from one of the guys son at the end. None of the tracks stands out in particular, but thats only because the whole thing is so good! Titles include ‘go!’ ‘nothing burns like an effigy’ ‘phase is just another four letter word’ and ‘hit em up’, which is a tongue in cheek (and very amusing) punk rock take on the Tupac song of the same name.
So, thats a heavy dose of positivity, humour, and some damn fine tunes, which is exactly what you’d expect from a band including members of Contra and Latterman (among others). The cd is one of those fancy 3″ bulked out to 5″ with clear plastic affairs, and it looks awesome. I think this is the first release for burnitdown/rebuild and they will have a split 7″ out soon on Rok Lok records with Deathcycle, for which i am stoked! Literally, perfect.