Naked Angels

Here are 3 Naked Angels 7 inches, as requested by a friend of mine. Naked Angels was a sXe hardcore band from North Carolina in the late '80s to early '90s. One of the members, Rob Seeman, called himself Rob R Rock, and became known as the first sXe hardcore rapper, with his track 'Cruelty Free' on the 'Voice Of The Voiceless' compilation from 1991. For a long time I didn't bother checking out this band because I expected some kind of bad rap/punk/hardcore mix... Thankfully I was wrong. And while Naked Angels are far from great, they're also definitely not bad. Decent punk/hardcore, nothing more, nothing less.

Despite the title of their 'The Real Hardline' 7" from 1991/1992, which also features a song with the title 'Hardline', the band was not hardline. The song 'Hardline' is actually about homophobic jocks in the straight edge scene, an issue that is still as relevant now as it was back then. The band did support veg(etari)anism as mentioned on the inside of the cover for the 'Intent To Kill' 7" from 1992, and all the members were straight edge as far as I know. The sound on this 7" is harder than on the 'The Real Hardline' 7", with Rob singing with a deeper, tougher voice. My favourite of these 3 7inches.

Also included here is a live 7" called 'On The Road E.P.', also from 1992. It has the subtitle "Recorded live at WRTC on 'Notes From The Underground'".

After these records, the band did another 7", 2 albums and were on a number of compilations. Some of these were released on Rob R Rock's own Groovecore label.

I did come across an 'interesting' piece of info regarding the Naked Angels drummer on the 'Intent To Kill' 7" from 1992, who turned out to have lots of issues and eventually ended up murdering his own mother... Check it out. Crazy stuff!

Naked Angels - The Real Hardline 7"
Naked Angels - Intent To Kill 7"
Naked Angels - One The Road E.P. 7"
Naked Angels website (old and unmaintained)

Bound (MA) 7"

As mentioned in my post of the Soundtrack To The Revolution comp 7" not too long ago, I have been trying to find a copy of the Bound 7" for a while now. And finally with success! Found a copy on the almighty eBay that I managed to scoop up at a damn nice price, and it arrived in my mailbox on the same day as a comment about that same 7" was made in response to the comp 7". Sweet coincidence!

This 7" from 1994 was the first release on Stolnacke Records, a short-lived label mostly known for co-releasing the Converge 'Halo In A Haystack' album. Apart from a demo, this is the only release by Bound from Leominster, Massachusetts. They later renamed themselves Hatchetface, and released an LP. That's about all the info to be found online about this band, I did find another blog that wrote about this 7", but the download no longer works. There's also this Hatchetface interview in Maximum Rock 'n Roll that has some information on Bound. Either way, this is damn good stuff. Gritty thrashy hardcore punk with a definite metallic edge, and pretty sick vocals, it reminds me of bands like Groundwork and Econochrist in parts.

In case you've downloaded this and are wondering where the scans of the insert are... there aren't any scans. The insert is poster-format, so it is too big for my scanner, sorry! One side is an Albrecht Durer woodcarving, thankfully one which isn't used too often by hardcore bands (this one). The other side has the usual stuff: lyrics (to 2 of the 4 tracks, Die Like Them and The Long March), a thanks list, general information, and a cryptic message that the lyrics to the other 2 songs are too whiny to show. BTW, since there was also a rather good hardcore band called Bound from New Jersey in the '90s, I added the 'MA' to the title. I might just put up some Bound (NJ) material at some point, you never know!

Bound (MA) - s/t 7"