Labels: Never Healed
Review by: Adam Fleet
The capital’s best kept secret, Hello Bastards, arrive with their debut record off the back of some frankly stellar live performances. One would assume that with a name like this, they would be named after the Lifetime lp of the same name, but if so then their sound could not be further from the melodious yankee troubadours. In their own words “Veganarchist Straight Edge Hardcore Punk’, Hello Bastards offer up a dual vocalled attack bringing to mind some of the better bands of the late 90’s early 00’s “Thrash Revival’. In particular they hark to formidable Dutch “youth crust’ like Betercore or Cockroach. More interestingly they wear their political heart on their sleeve with quick fire attacks on such injustice as sweatshop labour, environmental activist Jeff Luers and the Jean Charles De Menezes murder. Since the backlash to the over-PC nineties, it seems like the result these days is a bunch of “punks’ who seemingly don’t care about anything beyond music, and so it’s refreshing indeed to hear a band with forthright opinions, unafraid to actually give a shit. Great stuff.