Labels: Beach Impediment
Review by: Alex Deller
Six slices of face-smashing hardcore from a label that knows precisely what it’s doing when it comes to this sort of thing. The racket kicks off with a S.H.I.T. track which is always going to be a winning way to start as far as I’m concerned, and their number (‘Bliss’) does exactly what you want it to in terms of violent, blurred, delay-damaged nearly-chaos. Peacebreakers follow with a taut, tidy burst of Xclaim!-style brutishness and newcomers Mercenary close the first side off with some snarlingly ugly d-beat that variously nods towards the UK, Sweden and Japan in its attack. The flip starts with the excellent Impalers, whose weirdo artwork and decision to print Aerosmith lyrics rather than their own (I assume?) kinda matches their unnatural take on d-beat, which rages like a good ‘un but also froths at the edges with all sorts of strangeness. That’s all followed by Violent End, whose ‘Public Fear’ is built around bullyboy vocals and a clear n’ direct bout of straight-up riffing which actually kinda reminds me of a less metallic Strife. Err. Things finish up with Ajax who, like Peacebreakers over on the other side, drag things out of the piss-smelling, spike-jacketed swamps and back over to the sounds of Boston past. It’s good stuff all the way, frankly, with S.H.I.T. and Impalers leading the charge but all the bloody rest of ’em not too far behind. Gimme some more, indeed!