Cold World – Dedicated To Babies Who Came Feet First

Upon the release of No Omega kids went nuts, I didn’t understand, it was just their old songs and the 2 songs from the War Hungry split. Keeping this in mind, I wasn’t about to get all hard and stoked on their newest release, but still , I checked it out giving it the rightful chance it deserved. Cold World has an interesting attitude towards hardcore, by using an urban attitude they get the chance to express themselves using the polar opposite of hardcore, mixing in hip-hop cuts the album has an overall chiller feel to it. Although the band has a clear love for hip-hop, they never forget the words of Slapshot:

“Hip-hop and hardcore, thats so fucking gay
Crossover sucks, crossover sucks”.

In all honesty, this album is great, I had extremely low hopes for it, and they were fucking shattered, its reminicent of Ice Grillz but is much better produced, has more technical parts, and hey, lets be honest, some great mosh parts. Alot of the album has a little bit of a d-beat influence, but being Cold World, is definitely not a d-beat record. They have began to do a little of singing, some of it is really awkward, but some fits really well (see track “Boom Bye Bye”). It is a heavy record and I would seriously compare it to an Integrity album, Humanity Is The Devil imparticular, it has that same, deep and fast kid of feel. If you were any kind of fan of Cold World, this will not disappoint, and anyone who was not impressed at all by Ice Grillz, give them another chance with this. Don’t listen to the track “Whagwan”, it is just upsetting.

New Lows

Knowing that at the end of the work day I am going to go to a show and have the glorious chance to lose my mind with my friends is the best feeling in the world. When a band like New Lows come, you know it is going to be a good fuckin’ show. Accompanied by Eating Glass, four Molested Youth songs and the debut of Come Clean. New Lows set up and got ready with could be percieved as a sort of innocence, as if, noone knew what was about to transpire. As the few first notes were played, it began, one of the best sets I have ever had the pleasure to see, there was mosh, literally the entire set, from beginning to end, with each hard note, and every breakdown. Two girls even got their push mosh on, which by any standards was unreal, and before we knew it, the set was over. I personally dont listen to New Lows, but what a fun band, and what a fucking hard band. It is rare that I want to see a band badly that I don’t listen to, but I would love to see this band again…

WORD.

New Found Glory – Tip Of The Iceberg

For many hardcore kids, the extent of pop punk that they listen to is some old Lifetime records, but with this album New Found Glory shows that hardcore can be more poppy than that. From the poppy breakdowns to the wonderfully executed Lifetime and Gorilla Biscuits cover, this is more of just a fun record, that hard dudes can have fun to when they listen to it. It has the standard pop that New Found Glory obviously possesses, but adds a little more of a hard personality to the music, as noted on the track Dig My Own Grave, with a decently heavy breakdown and more aggressive vocals than usual at certain points. This record is overall much faster than the usual New Found Glory record, which is important to note because this is not the usual, New Found Glory wanted to record a hardcore record that would go back to their roots and they did a great job. The aforementioned Lifetime cover of Cut The Tension is probably one of my favourite hardcore covers ever. All and all if I rated things on a scale this would be high but not too high…Fun band, legit band, good music. Keep in mind this record was released on Bridge 9 and is available in their webstore.

Oh, and the other half of this release, The International Superheroes of Hardcore…. its just not good.

RAH – Intelligent Design

It is such an amazing sight to see a local band do such amazing and progressive work as a group, RAH is the definition of progression while keeping firm roots. July 5, RAH played their record release show with Forfeit at Studio BLR and fucking ripped it, hard. Upon beginning this record, you get what you would expect from any hardcore band, pissed off music, but RAH does it beautifully and not with too much anger and most definitely a side of fun. Ripping guitars and dirty vocals make this record sound so great, as displayed on the song Reality Check which begins sounding like an Iron Age song but quickly picks up into their own brand of thrashy hardcore with obvious infulences from Judge. Their sound is fast enough to make you want to move across the floor and the their preformance is great enough to make you want to stand and watch the whole set. RAH is what hardcore is about to me, cool guys, making great music who just want to be heard, so much so they are willing to let you download the record for free(click the cover image above). This is sincerely one of the best local hardcore records I have ever heard. Whether you download or buy the 7″ from the band, make sure you check it out, make sure you check out the track Time Will Tell, the angriest sounding tune on the record and I promise, you will not stop nodding your head the entire time. Case and point, this band is doing what it takes these days to get their name out there, and they don’t play too many shows, but when they do, they knock it out perfectly. Check this band out, buy a 7″, come see them play, support them.

www.myspace.com/wearerah