So Tired

So no posts today or on Friday, the reason? Well, I went to Rome this weekend and got back this morning and then started my new job so I am totally knackered. Shit will be back on track from tomorrow.

Spin Kicks At Will

Filled with hate has ascended into one of Europe's premier labels taking all aspects of what makes a good cd...well,...good and assuring that a high standard of quality is maintained throughout their catalogue. Even when the label was just starting out they were making waves with their records and this, only their fifth release from 2003 stands as one of their all time greats. Split cds have always enamored me, I mean you get two bands for the price of the full length and the consistency of the material is sustained throughout each band's half. Through the years there have been some novel ideas with the split, such as each band covering one of each other's songs (the first Caliban/Heaven Shall Burn), to both artists collaborating for one final track (Knuckledust/Stampin' Ground and I've heard that the alleged forthcoming Arkangel/Kickback will feature a track of this nature). But nothing beats two great bands churning out fifteen to twenty minutes worth of juicy material and this is exactly what is to be found here on 'Splitting Ammunition.'

I remember Die My Demon coming out as they were formed from the ashes of Sad Origin. Whereas the latter were more metalcore, Die My Demon were distinctly influenced by New York and especially Madball but added a distinct European flavour that made these tunes sumptuous in their delivery. 50 Caliber have become one of the UK's most well known bands on the mainland and have been churning out their vicious, downtuned, beatdown heavy metallic hardcore for a long time now. The songs here are so much stronger then their debut EP 'Internal Bleeding,' and hinted at the various directions the band could have pursued on their promised full length due to follow this release. Well the band has been plagued by line up changes and issues since the release of this record and continue to suffer to this day, let's hope they can get the full length out this year but in the meantime, see what you think,

Die My Demon - Splitting Ammunition - http://www.sendspace.com/file/gig8p2

50 Caliber - Splitting Ammunition - http://www.sendspace.com/file/3c9cac


Even though this only came out a few years ago, its now out of print on the label, I have found copies here - http://www.pyrrhus.be/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=192465 but as I have said in the past about this store, they can be very slow, so I've found a copy here too http://cgi.ebay.de/Die-My-Demon-50-Caliber-Split_W0QQitemZ150092479067QQihZ005QQcategoryZ87349QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

It's been one of those days...

Well, its a late one tonight, today has been one of those tumultuous days that we all wish that could be avoided and dread to encounter but its over now and a long, peaceful sleep awaits...

Therefore tonight's post is going to be short and sweet, so here goes.

Picking up where I was yesterday but taking a step back in terms of time with Stampin' Ground's first CD release from way back in 1996. This was where the band sounded much more core then metal and they had a different vocalist he added to this sound. I've heard statements made that Stampin' Ground in this phase were a 'heavier,' Earth Crisis, I think that mainly comes from the very chunky guitar tone which sounds like Destroy The Machines amped up on PCP. This was the start of the band's ascent to one of the leading lights of the UKHC food chain, they would go on to release 4 full lengths, 3 of which were on Century Media. One of my best memories of this band was seeing them in 2000 at the Garage (a tiny venue in London), it was with some very dry bands (including Lostprophets I think...I could be wrong, but I swear they were there), anyway, Pierre from Knuckledust annihilated everyone in the crowd with continuous vicious spin kicking and crowd charges and from what one hears here together with the later material its not hard to see why,

http://www.sendspace.com/file/wzdwif - Stampin Ground - ST

If you dig this then there are a few used copies floating around here - http://www.amazon.com/Stampin-Ground/dp/B00000B1ZH/ref=sr_1_5/104-1017930-3221500?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1178740343&sr=1-5

What We Have

So no post yesterday, this was due to 3 reasons, firstly because I did an extra post on Saturday, secondly it was a bank holiday and finally I spent the whole day at the Rucktion Damage Control fest, featuring la crema della crema of the UK's hardcore talent. It was easily the best show I've been to this year and by that I mean the whole thing was quality, granted I've seen better bands this year but not a single show that I've been too in 2007 since coming back from Rome matched yesterday's.

The show reminded me of how lucky I am to have this scene so readily available and one that is growing rapidly and expanding to frontiers that I would have never imagined so I thought it was about time that UKHC got some attention on here.

One of the early bands on was Hellbent Diehard. Formed in 2004 they comprise of 3 old skool UK heads that have been part of the scene for a long, long time. I remember them playing their first show while I was away in Italy and being majorly gutted to hear reports that when I got back that the show was not only amazing but that Hellbent were one of the day's highlights. Never mind. I've been lucky enough to see them many times since that day and each time it has been more and more impressive. This demo is impressively recorded (thanks to Sam the man's home studio, he is also the drummer) and brings out the fullness of the beats and riffs. Clearly their material is heavily influenced by their surrounding UK scene but the band also bring in influences from Cleveland and New York bands to create and even dirtier, grittier sound.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8me8hz - Hellbent Diehard Demo 2004

The band have been long working on their impending full length, which they told me yesterday is coming, they just need to record and trust, when it does drop its gonna be some heavy shit because they have progressed immensely from this demo, so keep watching here - www.myspace.com/hellbentdiehard

Now giving you a fuller flavour of the UKHC scene is this impressive document by the almighty Rucktion records. This took a long time to come together but was worth the wait as most of the tracks featured here are exclusives to the comp. Hellbent Diehard also feature here and sound like a completely different band as the heaviness and intensity are amplified tenfold to bring forth a devastating track that beckons well for that aforementioned full length. There are some of my favorite UK bands on this, including, Blades Of Unity (Maniacs from Liverpool) Ninebar (London's answer to Bulldoze), Diction (Croydon's finest) and TRC (not 1, not 2 but 4 vocalists). The UK bands are becoming so much more popular now, thanks mainly to the efforts of Knuckledust through the years they have opened doors for bands like TRC and Diction to play the mainland and finally get the recognition and respect they deserve.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/18kedj - Time For Some Rucktion

I haven't uploaded all the tunes because its still readily available from www.rucktionmusic.com, so if you feel what you hear, then buy it.

Still Shaking

The Godbelow has proved quite popular, and due to the cry for the rest of the album yesterday (thank you mr anon) and the people hitting the downloads, here it is,

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6whxdv -Godbelow - Painted Images With The Blood Of - Part 3

Shake Your Money Maker

Isn't it frustrating when a band is before its time? Even when you know that this band is so good and that they should be big, they end up fading into obscurity and vanishing from the memory of those who did care. Godbelow were one such band, making brilliant, inspired music that wasn't gaining much recognition outside the confines of their recognized boundaries (i.e. Syracuse). Long before the likes of Every Time I Die (and tons of other metal and hardcore bands now in circulation) were dropping cheeky southern runs and riffs into their tunes, Godbelow were churning out their molten metallic crunch with dirty southern riffs and harmonies but what did they get for it? Niente, nada, absolutely nothing.

To be honest though, 1998 wasn't the best time to be forming a metal band, especially one that was sans rapping, bad hairstyles, worse clothes and redundant, tuneless music. There wasn't also the prosperity of labels like Metal Blade signing every band under the sun. Hence this explains how Godbelow ended up on the tiny Surface Records and also why their records are almost impossible to find. Anyway, back to the band.

Godbelow were something of a Syracuse supergroup, formed from the shards of several awesome bands. The most notable members were Kris Wiechmann, formerly of Earth Crisis on guitar and Dan Johnson, ex vocalist of Blood Runs Black. Before going into record this album Wiechmann left the band, but then re-joined later to bolster back up again to 3 guitarists. The record itself was full of gorgeously thick riffs that were as bludgeoning as they were graceful and when coupled with Johnson's wrenching vocals it made Godbelow a fearsome musical monolith.

I've decided to split the tracks I uploaded into 2 lots, otherwise it would have been a single 40MB file to download,

http://www.sendspace.com/file/m8u96g - Godbelow - Painted Images - Part 1

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6f26jy - Godbelow - Painted Images - Part 2

How is this new arrangement working for people?? Do you prefer it like this or as single tracks?? Let me know.

This one is another that is stupidly out of print, god knows why as it is totally genius, but I have seen their stuff on http://www.ebay.com/ quite a bit.

Post Godbelow, most of the band went into the rather tame Brand New Sin which was far more rock. However, Dan Johnson and Godbelow's drummer Joe Murphy have gone onto form the mighty Unholy (if you haven't heard them, go immediately here, www.myspace.com/unholy) together with the riff monster Jonathan Dennison (Another Victim, The Promise, etc) and have a full length dropping next month.

Harlots Interview

I was very excited when it was announced that Harlot's sophomore record 'This Is The Second Death,' was coming out in the summer last year. So much so I hatched a grandiose plan to have their interview as the lead one for my then (pipedream) webzine. Well why let a good interview go to waste, and seeing as I have finally got this shit going, I thought I'd share this lengthy but really interesting interview with mainmain Jeff (drum god).


1) Firstly, would you please give some background on how Harlots came into being and what the goal was to do with this musical endeavor?

The initial ideas and songs for Harlots started coming together in December of 2002. Once Eric Dunn had joined the band as a guitar player in early 2003, that’s when the band really started to coming together. The goal was and is still to play music that satisfies us. We want to play music that is going to continue to make us better musicians, and also something we'd like to listen to. We keep topping ourselves because we are always pushing ourselves to be better musicians and write better songs.

2) It seems to me that Harlots is quite a demanding project, is this why you’ve had so many people come in and then leave the band?

Harlots is a demanding project, but it's what I love to do so I don't look at it like that. Eric and I have stuck with this band for almost 4 years, and we've had to replace vocalist after vocalist and bass player after bass player until we came upon Christian Fillippo about 2 years ago, and Josh Dillon just joined in December. This is probably the most solid the lineup has ever been.

About the ex members of this band, I'm not going to hold back. Most of them are still my friends, most of them just weren't serious about playing in a band. They thought it was something cool to do and didn't realize that you actually have to work for this(or just didn't feel like working), and that’s how it is for almost every other band that is trying to make a living playing. There are however other reasons members have to leave. Our bass player before Josh, Kenny Jones, toured with us in the summer of 2004 as a second guitarist, then toured with us in the summer of 2005 as a bassist. Kenny was 15 when he joined our band.

We knew that we were going to have to tour a lot more than Kenny would be able to due to him being in high school, so we got Josh. Josh plays guitar in Mugger, which Kenny plays drums for, so we're all still great friends. Another example would be Ben S. Jacob, who joined as a bass player the same time Christian joined to sing. Ben is a musical genius in his own regard, and a great guy and really worked for this band. After so long, we had some musical disagreements that we thought were getting in the way of finishing "This is the Second Death".

Ben is still a good friend of ours and now plays in a band called Basilica. On the other hand, our original bassist Joel Wright, and our vocalist before Christian, Alex McIntosh, both quit the band a week before "The Woman You Saw.." came out, and really fucked up touring for us. Both of those kids were my best friends growing up. We were really, really lucky that Christian and Ben were willing to drop almost everything and join our band. We had literally practiced with them once before they played their first show with us.

3) You have just released a new album, are you pleased with the outcome, certainly to my ears there is a marked quality in the sound, whereas your debut sounded more muffled (although this didnt detract from the power of the record) this time around you sound fuller and therefore more powerful, how do you feel this affected the songs?

Well "This is the Second Death" was recorded almost the exact same way as "The Woman You Saw...", the only difference would be that Steve Austin of Today is the Day mastered it. Eric has mixed both of our records, and mastered "The Woman You Saw...". "The Woman You Saw..." is the first record that Eric ever mixed, and we were both 17 when we started recording that record. It's really funny how that turned into a full length. Eric calls me up one day like "Hey my friend Nick can do alright recordings, we should do a demo with him". So we go and record, and in the meantime we're having a ton of lineup problems. About a month or 2 later Eric calls me up saying "Hey come over I got this demo to sound pretty good, come and check it out." We were having quite a bit of vocalist problems on that record, so me being the drummer, wrote all the lyrics and recorded vocals on it with the intentions of having somebody else redo the vocals, and everyone just kept flaking. "This is the Second Death" was recorded by the same dude, Nick Brough, and Eric mixed it. Whats really funny is that the guitar and drum tracks for "This is the Second Death" were recorded a week before "The Woman You Saw.." came out.

But to answer your question, I think "This is the Second Death" is a lot more focused than "The Woman You Saw...". Eric and I were both still really young during the writing process for both records. You can only be so focused when your 17 and 18. Now we're both 20, and we're still babies compared to all the dudes we're playing shows with, but we are definitely a lot more mature players. I am 100% happy with both records and I love the way Will Goodyears artwork compliments the sound.

4) Are you relived that This Is The Second Death, is finally out now? What hindered its release?

YES! A lot of things hindered it's release. First things first, when we first recorded it, Christian and Ben Jacob has just joined the band. So it took some time for Christian to write lyrics and get his voice up to par. This is the first band that Christian had ever sang for. I had mentioned a musical disagreement with us and Ben. Well what that boils down to is his bass tracks didn't fit the music the way that we thought they should. He has a very different way of approaching music from Eric and I. By that time I had joined Today is the Day, and while I was up there I asked Steve to master the record. It worked out really well because I got to sit next to Steve while he was mastering it, and he cut us a pretty good deal.

Now, the real problems were with Lovelost Records. When we had first agreed to do this record with them, everything seemed cool. We saw the success with his former bands Black Dahlia Murder, Into the Moat, and Through the Eyes of the Dead. He paid for the mastering and the artwork. Gave us a release date for November of 2005. So it ended up not meeting that release date. We were touring a lot then, in support of a record we didn't fucking have! Lovelost would promise us CD's each time we went on tour, then we wouldn't have them. There was one instance where he said "the CD's went to press today" which was the first day on our tour. So then I would try to call him to get updates, and no answer, no calls back.

Then he says "the pressing plant shut down in the middle of pressing the record and I can't get my money back" and says that his phone was shut off. So then we worked it out with our previous label Feeling Faint, that they would co release the record. Lovelost would pay for the pressing and it would get distribution through Lumberjack(Lovelost is exclusive through Lumberjack), and Feeling Faint would take care of getting it pressed and take care of all promotion, so basically all Kevin had to do was 30 minutes of work and sit on his ass and let the record come out. Well, after a month of waiting we said fuck it and went with Corrosive. The whole time, what it was is that Kevin was in Police Academy and didn't have time to run a label. We never signed a contract with Lovelost, and now he is asking us to pay him back for the artwork and mastering.

I'm probably going to get in some shit for saying all that about Lovelost. Haha.

5) Did you encounter great label interest when searching for a new deal and how does your new label Corrosive compare with those youve worked with before?

We had talked to Metal Blade, Prosthetic, Lifeforce, Translation Loss, Tribunal and Codebreaker. Corrosive Recordings just seemed like the best option. Eric at Corrosive was just like "I really want to work with you guys," right away, where everyone else was kinda iffy. That was the same deal with Feeling Faint, and Lovelost. They wanted to work with us and showed us that they wanted to. I believe that the label being as passionate about your music as you are is a really important thing. As far as comparing Corrosive with Lovelost, thats obvious. Comparing Corrosive with Feeling Faint... I think Corrosive is run more professionally, and I don\'t mean to talk shit on Feeling Faint, we are still great friends with them.

Eric from Corrosive just has a really really strong backround in music, having worked at radio stations, recording studios, worked for Hydrahead, roadied for The Red Chord and Unearth, and now working at Lumberjack Distrobution and the company that presses his CD\'s. With Feeling Faint, Andrew and Frankie have both roadied for us, Andrew was actually still in high school when we signed with them, he would skip class and talk to me on the phone.\n We were Feeling Faint\'s first release. I feel bad for Feeling Faint, because we are still the only band that has toured for a release on their label which has made it hard for them financially. I definately do see Feeling Faint turning into a really good label, especially with the Sleep Terror disc coming out. Corrosive has a had a decent amount of luck with how much The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza tour. Touring is 100% essential for bands like us. Oh and by the way, Eric from Corrosive lives about an hour North of me, so if I ever need to go up and kick his ass it won't be to terribly difficult, haha!

6) Who writes for Harlots and what is the process like when you are composing your music?

Eric and I write all of the music. We write songs in all kinds of different ways. Some newer material was written on drums before guitar was put to it. Some was written by Eric, Josh, and myself jamming. A lot of the more ambient stuff Eric did completely on his own. Typically, Eric and I write most of it together. There have been other pieces of music that I wrote on guitar, and the really early stuff was written by me and Joel.
Lyrically, Christian writes most of it on his own, but I still help out where I can.

7) Aside from the chaotic assault of your more aggressive material, there are the more introspective pieces throughout your 2 records. Do you plan to integrate with greater prominence the two sides to your sound in the future?

Definately man! It definately has changed from what it used to be like, you'll have to wait and see.

8) Leading on from the previous question, Id like to talk about your influences (musically). I dont remember where I read it (so correct me if Im wrong here) but a piece described you being as influenced as much as by Sigur Ros and Don Caballero as you are Cryptopsy and Discordance Axis, would you say that these are accurate? Personally, I feel that in your more introspective moments, they are dreamier and more akin to Mono, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Mogwai then Don Caballero.

Don Caballero's drumming was a huge influence on my drumming. I'm not really that familiar with Mono, and I definately used to be a fan of Godspeed You Black Emperor. To be honest, I think that a lot of that type of music is just too slow for my tastes. I play with a lot of energy, and I like music with a lot of energy. I know Eric is a fan of Mono. His band Kenoma, who just released a split cd with Mouth of the Architect, is right up that alley. Kenoma is an outlet for Eric to play like that because I'm not really into playing like that anymore. Like in the previous question, our lighter side has changed quite a bit. It's a lot more upbeat. I don't really know how to describe it, but I'm 150% more into what we're doing now.

A lot of those influences were mentioned when we were a younger band. I think now we influence each other\n to play the way we play. I write something on drums, so it pushes Eric to play up to par with what I have on drums. Eric writes something on guitar, it pushes me to play up to par with his riffs. We definately influence ourselves within the band more than any outside influences now, which I think is essential to having your own sound. Eric and I have inspired each other lot on guitar too(I played guitar before I ever touched a drumset). Earlier on, a lot of the ideas were spawned from guitar riffs I had, the tuning we used was something that I was fooling around with, etc. Eric is a much more natural guitar player than I am, and he took what I was doing on guitar and made it way better, so that definately influences me to try to keep up with him on guitar. I think it works the same way with Josh. Josh and Eric have been friends for a really long time. About everything Josh knows on guitar, he learned from Eric. So when Josh joined the band, there was no real down time.\n Thats the same way it was when Kenny was in the band too. Those two kids picked up our songs like it was nothing, when we have tried out other musicians who it takes a fucking month to get one song down.

9) Seeing as your music is quite abstract, what reactions do you gain when playing live? Do kids dance or stand swaying with their jaws rooted to the floor?

It differs every night. I love seeing kids tear shit up to us. We play with a lot of energy and I like to see that reaction out of kids. Some nights everyone will just stare at us, and I get done playing and thinking "man those kids hated us", then they come and talk to us and tell us we\'re the best thing they\'ve ever seen. And some nights, kids fucking hate us. Its really hard to say. We\'ll play with all pop punk bands and do really well, and then we\'ll do it again and do horrible. We\'ll play with all hardcore bands that sound like Sick of it All or something, and do horrible, and then other nights\n the crowd will love us. We\'ll play with all Christian bands and kids will absolutely hate us, we\'ve even been banned from Christian venues, and what blows my mind is that we have so many fucking bible references, but then those kids will eat up a band like Remembering Never, who is blatantly against God. Kids are fucking weird.

I think what it boils down to is that we're a band that plays music, and we definately try to push as many limits as we can with what we have. Kids that are there for music will love us, and granted sometimes it's a little too much for kids at first, but they still will respect us. Kids that are there for scene politics alot of times don't like us because we are there to play music for everyone, and we don't try to appeal to one small group. Which is what I thought hardcore was about anyways, oh well.

10) Do you think Harlots could have manifested 10 years ago or do you think that now the music climate is more geared too bands like yourselves that are overtly willing to push boundaries?

I think the music climate has always been open to bands who push boundaries. I think if this were 10 years ago, we would probably sound a little different, but look at bands like Today is the Day, Human Remains, Don Caballero, Sick of it All, Slayer, fucking Metallica, Death, Cynic, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen, etc. Everyone of those bands pushed the boundaries for what you could do musically and what would be accepted. They took chances that a lot of other musicians wouldn't take and now they are all legendary in their own right because of that.

11) Finally, what are your future plans for Harlots?

Touring, touring, touring, finishing up a new record for Corrosive, and touring. Look for us on the road in the U.S. with Veil of Maya, and Lye By Mistake later this year. Thank you for the interview.

Harlots are a great band. They are working on a new full length which should be out this year, if you havent heard them, then rectify that now - www.myspace.com/harlots.

If you want music, then those stores carry their cds,

www.verydistro.com

www.revhq.com

www.interpunk.com

Desperate Measures

Third world hardcore. There's an endearing thought and one that perhaps encapsulates purely what hardcore is meant to be, heart, soul and pure passion, all of which come in abundance throughout Point Of No Return's swansong record 'Imposed Freedom,' from 2002. Easily the most influential and perhaps best (although I still dispute this inside my head on a regular basis) hardcore band from South America, Point Of No Return, even in their formative days, were no poor imitation of the States and Europe. Granted there were prominent influences running from those demographics (especially from bands in the New York area and not just Earth Crisis) but they took these elements and sculptured them into their own entity that was relentlessly heavy, overtly confrontational and absolutely fierce. Coupled with the band's seething intensity was a pitch black atmosphere that engulfed the material, making it all the more urgent.

The progression that the band made from each release was astounding, as each element was given greater emphasis in the context of a piece. One of the band's greatest strengths was their mastery of how to expertly utilize three vocalists. Each one had his own unique aesthetic trademark but rather then merely have them separated, hammering out a line in turn they would overlap, butt in and appear without warning whilst another was still screaming. However, in spite of this sporadic approach a smooth flow was consistently maintained and added to the texture of feel of the songs.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/zbdzwd - Point Of No Return - Imposed Freedom

The band played their final show at the Liberation Fest in 2004 alongside various other great South American bands (such as Children Of Gaia, Nueva Etica etc). Apparently they were due to release another album in 2004 but this as of today has still not been released although I have been told it is coming.

Luckily, it looks like this record (and their other awesome full length) is still available here, http://www.verydistro.com/search.aspx?typeofsearch=artist&keywords=point+of+no+return

I was sick to discover recently that the band played Ieper Fest in 2002, if only I had known.

Like You Could Really Get On The BBC

I really don't know how I came to be acquainted with this band, I have a filling it was through their affinity with the almighty Page 99...probably, anyway, I'll quit the foreplay and get to the bones of the matter. Back before 'emo,' became a dirty word amongst snobby music circles, it was a term that (like hardcore) covered and encompassed so many bands with contrasting styles and approaches. Certainly classic 'emo,' would be associated with the calmer splinter of bands that sounded like indie rock but with broken hearts. But there were also those that were bracketed with the term that were far far removed from those calmer folks.

Amongst the finest were Majority Rule, whom I remembered being described to me as "emo-violence," back in 2001 when this record was unleashed. Now although the band described themselves as punk (like their kindred spirits Page 99) they sound nothing like what would be deemed as the archetypal punk band (so Rancid fans, leave now). Rather, this was a far more visceral brew complete with scathing vocals and stabbing guitars that swung and collapsed without warning, without structure, yet, despite the instability and the manic nature of their songs, Majority Rule were so adept at making their pieces memorable, filling them with beautiful (yet destructive) riffs and lyrics.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/y4n845 - Majority Rule - Interviews With David Frost

The band called it quits in 2004 but in their 8 years they were far from lazy, putting out two cds, a split with Page 99 and a slew of 7 inches.

If you feel the tunes support the band, they are still selling copies of this one together with their other cd releases here - http://www.majrule.com/main.htm.

Straight From The Streets

Easily one of the hardest bands I have ever seen live. The first time in 2002 at London's underworld was a war zone, it was absolute carnage and I duly feared that some, if not all of my teeth were about to be smashed. The same feeling was repeated when Irate literally tore through Pressure Fest in 2005, for the closing 'Vendetta,' the whole floor went bananas inciting the kind of dance floor moves best reserved for a Jackie Chan film set. I was privileged to see one of the final Irate shows last year and am still in fact mourning their passing and eagerly awaiting the promised resurrection of the band in a new guise.

Until that moment, let's take a step and consider how monunmetal, Irate were. This their debut from 1998 balanced the sound they would go onto develop on their seminal full lengths "11.34," and "NY Metal." For the uninitiated Irate were from the Bronx and produced an unduly hybrid of tougher then tough New York Hardcore with intricate metal leads, riffs and harmonies. Their sound was thick, relentless but also varied and constantly moving showing that this was no lunk headed troupe intent on busting your head with continuous mosh and beatdown, no, no, no, Irate looked to dissect you from various angles bringing in those breaks when you least expected it.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/v5rxlw - Irate - Burden Of A Crumbling Society

As you can see, there is only one download link, well I decided to rip the whole CD, zip it and post it as one, hopefully this will work, but if it doesn't, then let me know and I'll rearrange the tunes.

Now I love the sound of "Burden," especially the versions of "Transcendence," and "Gone," which appeared re-recorded on "11.34," here they sound so dirty, so of the streets and makes me want to break everything in orbit when those tracks hit.

Its amazing that no one picked up Irate during their tenure, considering that they wrote better songs and put on one of the best shows I have ever seen. Well, I hope that if they do return, fortunes are kinder to them.

Now due to "Burden," being released on a very obscure label 'Even If It Smells,' and their later output being self released, tracking down their records aint gonna be easy, the band were selling all 3 records on their website but that, together with their myspace have disappeared. So watch http://www.ebay.com/, and I'm sure that when the band do eventually resurface, they will do represses, for now, enjoy 'Burden.'