New releases today: Punk/Hardcore

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Review: It would take the current state of the world to awaken seasoned Boston based hardcore punk veterans The Hope Conspiracy from their slumber. The aptly titled Confusion/Chaos/Misery serves as the first piece of new material from the group since their 2009 True Nihilist EP, and offers a feral barrage of unhinged, D-beat inspired scathing hardcore fury. Whilst the members have kept busy in a myriad of equally impressive projects such as All Pigs Must Die, Hesitation Wounds, and Paint It Black (to name but a small handful), time felt fitting for them to regroup with Converge's Kurt Ballou at the iconic God City Studios to lay down this sonic curbstomp of a return, complete with a vicious cover of 'Dogfight' by Swedish crust-punk legends Anti Cimex as closer. And according to the band's website/press release - "this is just the beginning..."

Review: Originally founded by former members of Youth Of Today and Gorilla Biscuits, Judge would become another legendary example of the 1980s New York hardcore scene, with their 1989 Bringin' It Down LP widely considered to be one of the most vital cornerstones. At the dawn of 1990, a year on from their album release and a year before their official disbanding, the group dropped the There Will Be Quiet 7", boasting two of their most monstrous cuts, 'Forget This Time' and 'The Storm II', and now for the first time in over three decades, their ever-faithful label-home Revelation Records have authentically reissued the OG 7" single for both lifers who've likely parted ways with their copy, and newcomers still unearthing the plethora of classic material that built the bedrock for the scene's current moment in the sun. Militant straight-edge hardcore, delivered with beastly metallic riffs and a message so earnest, sincere and palpable, it'll convert you if you're not careful.

Review: Born To Expire is the debut album by New York City band Leeway. Renowned as leaders of the crossover thrash charge in the mid 1980s, the local fountainhead, their early-days genius, was none other than that exalted club of legend, CBGB. Though the bands they ran with saw them as odd ones out for their originality - it was indeed their sweats that led to the coinage 'crossover thrash' at all - it was this very incongruence that saw to their popularity. In hindsight, lead guitarist and songwriter A.J. Novello described his delight at the album's success, boastful of its totally metallic sound and the one that "rewrote the book on New York hardcore".

Review: Contemporary D.C. punk gets another run for its money with this seven-year anniversary of No Man's 'Glitter And Spit' EP. Emerging from the city's punk scene with the collective voracity of a starved vat of piranhas, the four-piece band came together amid the fallout of prior project Majority Rule, albeit with a similar set of musical-political aims. The EP evidences No Man's sound as huge and clunking, thanks to the nearly slowcore-esque drums and guitars of Pat Broderick and Kevin Lamiell (in its slower moments, at least), yet coming fronted by a toothy, harpish snarl by vocalist Matt Michel, backed up by guest vocalist Maha Shami on one track. The faster moments are monumentally cathartic and powerful; this is by far one of the most intense punk records we've heard all year so far, carrying enough home-headbang potential to evince many a rageful family moshpit from the sound alone, let alone the commentary over the Israeli-Palestine conflict it also bears.

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