ACID CASUALTIES - FLAGS ARE FALSE

The inimitable Iron Lung Records brings us one of 2025's best pure hardcore punk LPs with New Jersey's ACID CASUALTIES. They've been a little enigmatic despite also being based in the tri-state area, I guess due to logistical constraints limiting their activity over the past few years both in terms of playing local gigs and writing/recording. So this one sort of came out of nowhere for me. In terms of the actual sound, it is pretty much just straight up unadulterated 80s USHC at its most vicious and frantic, as you'd expect for a band taking its name from a KORO song, but I also hear a bit of Swedish influence in some of the riffs. "Derelict Dog" comes to mind in that regard. There aren't any bands I can think of in the region doing this style of hardcore this well, and it's right up my alley, so I'm pretty siked about this record and (hopefully) getting to see them play more shows around here too.

Fav tracks: Derelict Dog, Acid Casualty

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EARLY GRAVE - SEWER BABY EATEN BY WORMS

 

I know this release has been getting buzz, selling out in most places and I'm probably a bit late posting about it. I heard bits of it in my friend's car when it first came out but didn't listen all the way through until I got the tape in the mail recently, and it was well worth the wait. It even came with a download code! You don't see that too often nowadays, at least with punk and hardcore tapes, but I do use them. 

Getting to the actual music, first of all this tape has some real nice shredding. The guitar playing is nuts and the closest thing I'd liken it to would be the sinister virtuosic chaos of HOLOGRAM or CICADA. EARLY GRAVE's sound overall to me has a bit of the bleakness and cold, nihilistic rage of classic dairyland hardcore, the frantic and spasmodic tendencies of Italian punk and a little 80s extreme metal influence, all somehow spewing out of a three-piece where the guitar player is also singing. 

Fav tracks: Frozen Blood, Terror of the Gods, Pillagers

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NUNHEX - DISRUPTIVE DECEPTION (2013)

 

NUNHEX was a band from Miami that played very fast, bombastic hardcore in the style of RIPCORD, BRAIN DEATH or SCHOLASTIC DETH. The drumming was absolutely perfect for this type of band - controlled chaos, fast, intense, never static but very tight and loud - and they had a cool live presence. Everyone in the band moved around a lot in a way you don't see too much nowadays, where it seems like most people playing guitar are content to stand still and just try not to fuck up too bad. There is no shortage of bands playing this style of hardcore today but few nail it like NUNHEX did. A 2010s Florida classic.

FFO: Heresy, Brain Death, Ripcord

Download Disruptive Deception (2013)

Download S/T EP (2013)

Download Live at Churchill's (2013)

A Stack of Tapes I Bought Recently

Most of these have download links either in the title or below the text.

EXO - DEMO

EXO has the eerie art punk weirdness of bands like THE MOB or FLOWERS IN THE DUSTBIN but it's about being a bug. It's cool but I don't think I like bugs enough to be super into it. The cassette itself is well put together. The delicate, colorful artwork is pleasing to my eye, and the lyric insert comes on a transparent cardstock, typed out with what appears to be a real typewriter, so there's definitely been a good bit of care and know-how put into this which anyone should appreciate. 

WORLD DISORDER - DEMO

ENTOMBED/NIHILIST/BOLT THROWER worship done by punks, ala SKITSYSTEM. The vocals are really sick and the guitars are perfectly hitting that fuzzy, crushing HM-2 Left Hand Path tone. Single-sided J-card, no insert, no frills just 18 minutes of crust metal Swedish style. Really sick band to see live if you get the chance.

Download Full Demo

PISTON - CAPITAL CRIME

Sublimely executed Oi! hardcore. Automatic 10/10 for using the word "Bowdlerize" in the lyrics for "Spit Your Take." Tough, catchy vocals, gang choruses galore, straightforward lyrics, will have you pumping your fist relentlessly. Clean looking insert despite having a lot of text jammed in there, and the tape sounds great.

Fav track: Integrity

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AUTO SEAR - DEMO

Straight GLOOM worship, noisy, relentless pounding sonic obliteration ala DISCLOSE out of Virginia. If you like those bands, if you like DOOM you will like this a lot. If you don't you won't. I do really like how the noise is incorporated on this tape though, it is genuinely harsh and off-putting and it's always lurking. Single-sided J-card with a big folded, heavy lyric insert that has cool art. Attractive little purple tint cassette tape.

Fav track: Killing for America

CICADA - TRUE SELF DESTRUCTION

I feel like people only say CICADA sounds like 80s Italian HC because of the CCM cover they play. They have some of that gross weirdness and frantic guitar playing but the mood matches UNITED MUTATION more to me. The stompy part at the end of track one here also sounds like some late 1980s black metal. Idk, it's just highly uncanny and sinister. Another single-sided J-card here but this time with a small, thin insert. Don't ask your parents to try to read the text on it. The fuzz and murkiness of the tape are good for this band.