Ok so Obliterations are a new band from California that I was only alerted to about a couple of weeks ago because a friend of mine is trying to put a gig on for them in Liverpool so i decided to check them out luckily I haven't missed out too much by these guys so I'm quite glad to have found out about them now! Featuring members of Black Mountain, Saviours,Bluebird,Yaphet Kotto to name but a few I have to be honest having only heard of Stephen Mcbean of Black Mountain who is in the band i didn't know what to expect I kinda thought maybe some sort of cool Psych/Stoner type stuff but I was WAY off the mark these guys play an absolutely ferocious modern take on old school American hardcore not unlike maybe a supercharged version of Annihilation Time ( see my post on them HERE ) however that being said it's not without it's modern touches as well! They list their influences as simply Black Flag and Black Sabbath! and to be honest when starting a band what more do you need? and seeing as those bands happen to be my 2 favourite bands then I am automatically gonna give a thumbs up before I've heard a note!!!
So Far these guys have only released 2 x 7" EP's 8 tracks total but they have an album out called "Poison Everything" on Southern Lord on 14/10/14 which i will add to this post when it comes out. But for now here are their 2 EP's in one handy package Their self titled debut EP from 2013 and latest EP from this year "The Hole" what you get is 8 tracks of loud distorted everything turned up to 10 dirty nasty hardcore however as i say this is hardcore looking back to early 80's California (think early Black Flag, Circle Jerks etc) with some more slightly "Rocking" touches (think early 00's hardcore like Suicide File or Snakebite or something along those lines) I post a lot of this retro hardcore type stuff on here and I genuinely feel there is not enough of it around but I only pick the best of it to put on here as it's not easy to capture that "Dangerous" feel of the early 80's USHC you can pillage Black Flag riffs as much as you like but unless you really know your stuff you're just wasting your time these guys however have taken that sound and feel and brought it kicking and screaming into 2014 and added their own spin on it without taking too much away from the core sound! This is intense loud and nasty hardcore done the way it should be without going crazy on the speed or adding heavy guitars or whatever! Having found these guys was a real pleasure for me and I hope you readers will enjoy them too I cannot WAIT for the album!
On a final note here's some trainspotting for you.... if you doubt these guys credentials as a hardcore band you may be interested to know that although Stephen Mcbean is best known for his Alternative/Stoner band Black Mountain and his Acoustic alias Pink Mountaintops I just found out that he was also in an old Canadian hardcore band called Mission Of Christ who did one demo tape and a split EP with Fratricide (Fratricide would later do a couple Of EP's and record a split album with Neuroot for the legendary Pusmort records which never got released) And i remember very clearly that back in 1987 that Fratricide/Mission of Christ split EP was a highly sought after 7" by many collectors of hardcore myself included I eventually got a copy and it was a great EP! So there you go it may have taken him a long time to come back to hardcore but like every other fan of that kind of music you never lose your love for it!
*UPDATE* So as i mentioned these guys were preparing to release their debut album when i did this post and I promised I'd add it when I got it but try as i might i could not lay my hands on it pre-release! It was killing me cos i have played the 2 EP's to death, so "Poison Everything" carrys on where the EP's left off again if you have read the rest of this post then you should have a good idea of what they sound like however unleashed from the confines of the EP format and given a whole album these guys have exceeded even my expectations this is an utterly shredding killer of an album aside from the influences i already mentioned that i heard through the EP's on this album i hear touches of Motorhead in places and the title track is a slow sludgy groove with such intensity that it easily matches the more ferocious faster tracks with ease and even the faster tracks are faster than some of the tracks on the EP's ! also notable is the other longer slower track on this album "Shame" which is a super crushing jam with a groove that is like Greg Ginn jamming with Celtic Frost circa 1985!!! Sound insane? well it totally works and completely floors me! This album has enough originality, variety and twists and turns within it's chosen style that although the majority of the 13 tracks are fairly fast paced they are memorable and stick in your head which is unusual for most hardcore. These guys are masters of their craft and this album is a real killer! Southern Lord are just killing me these days with the quality of their current bands and I hope they continue to release bands like this and Baptists among the many other gems they have uncovered! Again this is definitely one of my top 5 best of this year YEAH it's THAT good! Enjoy....
Obliterations EP's - Mediafire
Poison Everything - Mediafire
