I'm just putting out a line here and wondering if anyone is into the same kind of music I am. I am pretty into hardcore punk, stuff like A Wilhelm Scream, Alexisonfire, Propaghandi, etc. The thing is though, hardcore punk walks a fine line: bands like Protest the Hero and Dillenger Escape Plan getting too close to "wall of nearly-senseless noise" for me to enjoy it. At the other end, bands like Rise Against and Strike Anywhere are sometimes too emotional for me to be able to really feel like the music rocking hard enough to satisfy. What I like would then be more melodic hardcore, I suppose.
A Wilhelm Scream is probably my favourite band of the last 10 years for the simple fact that they rock indescribably hard. Rarely does thier music cross into the sort of emotional flimflam of the emo scenesters and more often talks about the usual punk ideologies of how to fuck things up for those who are so proud as think they are above you or that there is room for improvement anywere in society. Both
Mute Print and
Ruiner are packed with enough shit to make your face melt. There have been bands in the past that I think wished they could've rock this hard, but it wasn't invented yet. Whenever I listen intently, I am always pleasantly surprised by unexpected structures, those little eclectic trills or cutting hammer-ons that sneak into them. I've not bought
Career Suicide but if the rest of the tracks are as well built as "5 to 9" then I will probably never want to buy another album again. I'm going to go ount and get it tomorrow, I'll let you guys know what I think. With each new album, I hear more and more of a sweet, progressive freedom in thier music, and each time it cuts deeper and rocks harder than the time before.
A Wilhelm Scream's "5 to 9" (cool video too)
"I Wipe My Ass With Showbiz" (funny intro)
Alexisonfire is more melodic, with frontman Dallas Green's honey voice raking in the benjamins on the side, but the raw sinwaves of energy that pour out of the high-crunch thick-tempo licks in
Watch Out! and the self-titled album (especially things like "Polaroids of Polarbears" and "Counterparts and Number Them") sound like seraphim to me. You've probably all heard it by now, but just because its six years old doesn't mean it stopped being awesome. Thier Moneen-Switcheroo is probalby one of my favourite albums, "Charlie Sheen VS Henry Rollins" is such a killer track, Moneen's rendition of "Accidents" or the mix "Bleed and Blister" just make me melt. I'm not really sure if I liked where
Crisis was going, somewhere away from the binaries of foundational punk rythms and cooling melodies that existed in the first two albums (ie the single "This Could be Anywere in the World"), but I still think it keeps enough to there initial sound for me to enjoy it (especially "We Are The Sound", which I think is really killer).
Alexisonfire's "Waterwings (and other poolside fashion fauxpas)"
What I like about these bands is that they are real. There is no dressing up or putting on "the image" for the label or for the sake of it, or because they are sullen and angsty, even. I really identify with the fact that they're middle class working guys who know how to rock out and made a living out of it. There is a distance from the emo/punk-lite scene in attitude and composition that really makes all the difference, but a focus on the musicality and clarity of melody that is lacking once you start to go more hardcore.
But yeah, thats just me. What do you think?