The last two weeks had two outstanding hardcore releases in store for us which i’ll take the shortcut of rolling into one post here. Brainwash Victims from Milwaukee, Wisconsin have a new cassette out via Alawful Assembly sporting a sound that’s not only fuzzed-out and noisy, raw and pissed as fuck but also comes up with plenty of inventive twists and turns, catchy hooks and melodic overtones along the way. These dudes don’t just go hard, they’ve also got the tunes to make it stick!
Cleveland’s Yambag then is a group i’ve had a bit of a sketchy view of over the years, especially with some of their more recent outings which at times sounded as if the harder these dudes play, the less effort they tend to put into the underlying tunes as if to compensate for a lack of song substance… Anyway, a decade into their efforts, they’ve released a new eight-song EP that shows them from their best side with a strong set of new tunes that keep things simple but also hard-hitting and catchy, just about hitting the sweet spot in their stylistic Venn diagram where everything that makes them shine is in place and perfectly dialed in. This one’s a keeper.
