This Richmond, Virginia group’s ’24 tape Fucking USA already showed the early signs of something worthwhile but their newest EP via Sex Fiend Abomination finally proves what what all the fuss has been about in the first place, as this group strikes me as a breath of freah air breaking up the rampant hardcore comformism signified by a bottomless ocean of fairly oldschool-ish groups that seem to pride themselves on playing really fucking hard yet never fail to bore me to death with their ultra-generic, fatally unimaginative tunes and arrangements. Yankee Bastard refuse to play that game, not by inventing anything particularly new here, but by exhibiting a baseline level of creativity and playfulness that should be the rule rather than the exception in punk, basically enriching every tune with that certain bit of weirdness, a novel idea or a flash of melodic brilliance that reminds you how this music can be grim and angry but really freakin’ fun at the same time. And damn, as much as we do need our music to speak the ugly truth, we also desperately need to get some fuckin’ joy out of it cos honestly, just reading the news every day is enough of a depressing doom spiral to me right now. It’s been said that an integral feature of fascism is an utter failure of the imagination so in turn i expect of punk groups to have some of it instead, ‘cos otherwise, you’re just wasting my time and attention and i’d rather read more of the news then… at the very least there won’t be any boring-ass bland music accompanying it.
Before i forget it, there’s been yet another kickass burst of certified not-boring hardcore released on the same day, same label, same city. U.A.V. excell on this one by way of a neat garage-y, KBD-esque basis to their unpretentious, oldschool sound, a neat fuzzy and quite adaptive guitar performance and an unhinged, over-the-top pissed vocal freakshow. It takes so little to stick out of the pack, really… an idea or two basically, the slightest of fucks given to your songs and arrangements and maybe a riff that’s not that one stale riff everyone is playing all the time. It’s why i’ve grown increasingly unwilling to engage with anything less in hardcore these days. If you can’t do as much, i don’t care how fast and hard and tight you’re playing your borecore and how freakin’ punk you look doing it.
