The Hope And The Failure – The Lights Are On But This Dance Never Ends

Embrace by The Hope And The Failure

The Hope And The Failure is the name of a band that got split up because of deportation regulations. Which is the most fucked up reason for a band-breakup ever. Sonic Youth’s guitarist and vocalist get divorced and that even gets Belgian tv-broadcast on the news. Some poor sucker gets denied a simple formality by some white-collar fuckups and suddenly this band loses a key-member! Anyway, wether you’d call them defunct, on hiatus or in a temporary setback, The Hope And The Failure (myspace) is a Scandinavian band with a lot of post- rock and hardcore influences and intense female screamo vocals at the climax that built up from spoken word in the build-ups. The lyrics are on the verge of too dramatic, straight-forward and cheesy, but who can blame anyone who’s not a native english speaker yet has english lyrics.

HeWhoCorrupts – The Discographer

Master Of Profits by Hewhocorrupts

All praise sarcastic comic powerviolence, I think I’ve read about the term ‘jokesterviolence’ somewhere. Delivering relevant messages hinted in random, sarcastic and generally funny ways is Hewhocorrupts (myspace). This is the discography record they put out, which really shows how the band has developed. From more metallic grinding hardcore punk, probably early on, to the distinct screeching powerviolence style they have come to be known for. Note their cover of ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ and the songs from their record ‘master of profits’, an album in which every song was a referrence to a Metallica song, only with their signature capitalist/corporatist thematics. Which you can’t debate is a brilliant concept.

Momentum - Whetting Occam's Razor

 listen to Culture by Momentum

for argument's sake, I will not namedrop any of this band's members past musical projects. needless to say, it would be reason enough to take note. altough, unlike the discussions around this band favors, it wouldn't be 100% fair to deny this has influences from those respective bands' styles and genres. Momentum (facebook) plays dark hardcore punk with melodic powerchord-driven guitars and pumping, usually d-beat, drum patterns. the lyrics are fairly straight-forward but very creative and , together with spoken-word samples, they hover around "the ideals of Carl Sagan and other luminary thinkers, to forward atheism, animal rights and feminist politics". And one sample of the movie Home Alone, followed by the catchiest punk rock song played in their signature style. good fun.

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXVI

 listen to 'Poking Fun' by Flashlights

There is room for progress in Emo music... Flashlights (facebook) isn't easy to define, as they portray a curious combo of a specific style of indie music (not unlike Wavves or Best Coast) and a wide variety of the branches of emo music. the end product is always upbeat, 'pleasant' and sometimes wild music. genuinely both awesome and progressive feel good music to please enthusiasts of the midwest emotional punk as well as the dreamy hipster music!

Flashlights - "Choking!" from Stephen Marsh on Vimeo.

Towers with Take Down Your Art

Words From The Doctor by Towers

Towers (Bandcamp) do something entirely different with chaotic music. Influences from hardcore metal, screamo or punk are only traceable to the very basic elements of their songs. Everything else is just screeching and/or discordant guitars, frantic screaming and versatile percussions that all seem to be doing their own thing, rather than dictate the rythm to the guitars , or vice versa. When you listen to the total package, it’s amazing how it all sounds consistent and in sync.

click the image above for another website with downloads to all their music (or get them from their personal Bandcamp)

Good Teeth/Gold Teeth - We Are Bound, All of Us, by Suffering, Even More Than by Joy

We Are Bound, All of Us, by Suffering, Even More Than by Joy by by Good Teeth/Gold Teeth

This starts off with a minute and a half of guitar feedback and vocals with bucketloads of angst, supported by a pummeling bass. From there on out, Good Teeth/Gold Teeth (facebook) have paved the way for raw and heavy hardcore music, with heartbreaking -tortured even- vocals. Their mix of passionate with dark and tumultuous elements and moving in between various tempos of their extreme music, make this band approachable for people who prefer various styles of hardcore. Without squeezing themselves in an all too narrow subdivision, thus succesfully transcending the division in music that is supposed to be about unity, to begin with.

click the image above to see their merch. it's not stated how to order it, so contact them on either of their websites, k?

Never Again - Year One

Mindless Believer by Never Again

If you’re not straight edge, chances are you’d feel bad about that when you realize how much you like this band. Never again (Myspace) was a fairly straight forward sxe hardcore punk band, in both sound and ethics, with elements ranging from quick- to turbo-paced hard punk music. Their ethics can not be overlooked as even the spoken soundsamples, as intros to songs, as well as the lyrics, deal with anti-poison messages that can not be mistaken as anything but an agressive stance toward drug-(ab)using individuals. Their range of influences reach from the broad spectrum of youth crew hardcore to true to form edge/power-violence.
Last fm tags as  hardcore, punk, rock, straight edge, punk-rock

click the image above to buy this record from their label!

out Of The Box On Sunday XXV

Partners in Crime by Thy Mighty Contract

Thy Might Contract (facebook) brings something way off the chart. freaky and dreamy noise-rock with mostly shouting/talking yet clean (ex- I Would Set Myself On Fire For You) vocals. the overall product is full of layers of weird effects on every instrument and voice, resulting in a very alienating sound. like a hipster on a bad acid trip. all of it sounds like the product of very spazzy, erratic and random people getting together and just creating music very naturally, without the restrainment of labelling, or basing what they do on what is considererd the right way to do it. this is for the adept musiclover.

Last fm tags as  indie, post-hardcore, female vocale,psychedelic, experimental

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXIV

(you'll need a torrent program for this download)

Dëthkløk is the band around which the animated show 'Metapocalpyse' revolves. the theme of the show is the vulgar and brutal lifestyle of the metalband, which is bigger than anything in their world and makes them literally get away with murder. so basically an animated series that balances gore, metal and dark or absurd comedy. in almost every episode you would get a song, which are all written by Brendon Small, the band had written based on their experiences of that episode. and when you have followed the series for a while, those songs become something to look foward to. a surprisingly distinct sound that somehow covers a lot of different branches of metal music, only always as hard as it is melodic with over the top cliché METUHL  or just absurd lyrics. these are 2 albums that compile those songs

Last fm tags as  death metal, blacker than the blackest black times infinity, melodic death metal, metal, comedy

Heathens - II

 listen to Placebo by HEATHENS, from this album

Heathens is a welcome addition to dark hardcore and the words must fitting to describe them would in fact be “dark” and “hard”. Hard, dark and angry as heck, they rarely reach anything higher than mid-tempo hardcore music, but when they do they go all out with blast beats to boot, much like the ‘slower’ parts in powerviolence bands or the representative Trash Talk-type ‘angry’ hardcore sound. This band brings the bedroom mosh. The trashing kind of music that couldn’t keep you standing still, listening to it, even in private non-hardcore places.
Last fm tags as  hardcore, thrash

click the image above to buy their record directly from Last Anthem Records!