Morality Crisis

Morality Crisis from Minnesota/Wisconsin was a band I had never heard of till recently. One of its members, Christ, contacted me about his band, and label Minnesconsin Records (Minnesota, Wisconsin, get it?). Morality Crisis just released a new 4-song EP called 'North'. And it is pretty damn good! Morality Crisis mixes various styles into a great blend, ranging from post-rock to sludge to metal to hardcore. Good stuff, great riffs, with a heavy & full sound all around. And the vocals are awesome as well, nice range in styles, without sounding forced at any point. As I said, I had never heard of this band before, but they've been around since 2003, released an EP in 2005, broke up in 2006, and are now back together. Their new EP is streaming at their bandcamp, where it can also be bought as a digital download. Their old EP can be downloaded for free from there as well, it is also quite good. Physical copies of the new EP should be available sometime soon as well. Definitely give this band a listen.

Disbelief demo

Disbelief was a hardcore band from from Bowie, Maryland, here's a demo of theirs. I don't know if this demo originally came with an insert, mine just has the cover with the track-listing, and contact information on the tape labels. It doesn't even have a date or year on it, but I guess this one's from 1995/1996, as their first 7" was released in 1996. I picked up this demo at a random record store over here in Rotterdam in the Netherlands actually, of all places. Must have been 2000/2001 cuz I was working at a place near that record store at the time. I think I got another demo that time as well, but can't remember which one right now, oh well...

Anyways, the first time I came across Disbelief was when I got their split 7" with Outcome, on Moo Cow Records/FistHeldHigh Records. I got that split 7" cuz of Outcome, who did an amazing 7" on Surprise Attack Records. Unfortunately for Disbelief, the Outcome side on that split 7" ruled hard as well, so I didn't play the Disbelief side nearly as often as I should have. While they're not Outcome, nor sound anywhere near them, they were definitely a good band. This is a really solid demo with fairly straight-forward hardcore, with some metallic influences and a 'hard' edge. The last song is a cover of Killing Time's 'Backtrack'. Besides this demo and the aforementioned split 7" and some appearances on compilations, I know they also did a self-titled 7" and a split 7" with Emerge, neither of which I own unfortunately. I guess they were into ice hockey, as both this demo and their side of the cover of the split 7" with Outcome feature a picture of fighting ice hockey players. Enjoy!

Disbelief demo

Medicine Man - Céad Míle Fáilte 7"

Here's a 7" of a band I know very little about, Medicine Man. This 7" was released in 1993 on Thrashing Mad Records, and besides a demo which I don't have this is their only release it seems. They also appear on the 'Revive Us Again' compilation 7" on Machination Records out of Belgium from 1993. The weird title of the 7", 'Céad Míle Fáilte', means something like 'a hundred thousand welcomes', it's a traditional Irish greeting apparently. To keep the Irish connection going, while Medicine Man were from New York, their bass-player Anthony Champa apparently now lives, or has lived, in Belfast, Ireland. He also played in Puzzlehead and GO! before Medicine Man, and GO! played in Ireland on their '91 European tour, so maybe that explains the title of this 7" and his current whereabouts. Anyways, this is decent hardcore that alternates between rocking mid-tempo hardcore and short fast bursts of hardcore. Oh, and the abrupt end of 'For The Love Of God' is the way it ends on my 7", but it sure does sound like a screw up by the pressing plant (or whoever cut the lacquer I guess).

Medicine Man - Céad Míle Fáilte 7"

A post about ACTA

I never had the intention of turning this blog into a political soapbox, but ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) does deserve some attention, also in light of the recent SOPA/PIPA media frenzy... While SOPA & PIPA made headlines all over the Internet not too long ago, and deservedly so in my opinion, ACTA has been making the rounds in government offices all over the globe quite a while now, mostly behind closed doors (in the interest of 'national security', if you can believe it) and with as little media attention/exposure as possible. ACTA has just as potentially damaging consequences as SOPA/PIPA, and from what I can tell is quite broad in scope. Unfortunately it has already been signed by governments all over the world including the US, Australia and the majority of the EU countries. But in the case of the European Union, it is still not too late to act and turn the tide, as the European Parliament still needs to vote on it. Anyways, as I am not a lawyer nor do I feel I am the right person to explain the inner workings and potential consequences of ACTA, here are some links (with varying points of view and backgrounds) you can check out, which I urge you to do. Decide for yourself.

ACTA full text pdf
Thought SOPA Was Bad? 10 Reasons to Oppose ACTA
What's wrong with ACTA Week
How to act against ACTA
Counter-Arguments Against ACTA
As Anonymous protests, Internet drowns in inaccurate anti-ACTA arguments
Impeach Obama for bribery? Anti-ACTA spin reaches new lows

And a video by Anonymous (which does take a worst case scenario stance, but why not?!):

Shudder - The Hand Of God demo

Recently Jim of the amazing Moo Cow Records was selling a ton of demo's on ebay. Demo's which bands had sent him to be considered for his label. I managed to acquire a bunch of those demo's, so I'll be putting some of them on here. This is the first one. Shudder was a heavy metalcore band from Madison, WI in the late 90s. This is a seriously good demo, if you enjoy late 90s bands that are more metal than hardcore like Sevenday Curse, Hyde, Dawn Of Orion, etc, you should give this band a chance. I've found pretty much zero information on them online, unless this is the same alternative/nu-metal Shudder who have now re-united? If anybody has any info on this band, please leave a comment, I would love to find out more about this band.

Shudder - The Hand Of God demo

Day Of Contempt demo

Day Of Contempt was an Australian metal/hardcore band which started out in 1997 in/around Adelaide. Here is a demo by them from 1998. Solid heavy metal/hardcore in the vein of bands like Earth Crisis and Another Victim, with similar vocals. The band had several sXe members, I don't think the band was a full-on sXe band though. After this demo they released the 'Where Shadows Lie' MCD on Voice Of Life Records & Trial And Error Records in 1999 and the 'See Through The Lies' full-length on Good Life Recordings in 2002. Both of these releases continued in the vein of the demo and are pretty good as well. In 2004 the band moved to Los Angeles to try to establish themselves there and become a full-time band. Their sound also changed considerably in a more commercial direction with added clean vocals and such, and they weren't nearly as heavy as before. They turned to shit basically. The end-result was the 'The Will To Live' MCD on Epitaph in 2005. It's pretty bad if you ask me. However this demo, and also their other releases, is great solid and raw hardcore/metal. Enjoy.

Day Of Contempt demo

Acid Snake

Acid Snake is a band from Brisbane, Australia which plays hardcore in the vein of bands such as Nails, Converge, Trap Them etc. They wear their influences on their sleeve, so if you like said bands, you will surely like this band as well. The vocals are raw and gritty, but expressive still. And the music rages while being diverse enough to keep my attention. I've heard a lot of bands do worse than Acid Snake in this style. In 2011 they released 2 EP's, 'Pariah' and 'The Sun Distortion Session'. Both of these are available from their Bandcamp page, tho I've also provided links to direct downloads which were given to me by the band. They're hoping to release an album sometime this year, hopefully that'll give them some more exposure. While OnexPath is definitely about 90s hardcore, and continues to be devoted to that era, I am also trying to keep up with current hardcore and there are exciting bands popping up every day. Acid Snake is one of them, so do support these guys if you like them.

Update: It appears that a few days after the band contacted me, the band folded unfortunately die to internal conflicts. Shame.

Acid Snake - The Sun Distortion Sessions EP
Acid Snake - Pariah EP
Acid Snake facebook