Hard Stripes – Hard Stripes (Vinyl Conflict Records)
The ability of hardcore bands, even some of the best in the genre, to sound strikingly similar to a decidedly recognizable set of influences yet still retain a compelling intensity is one of the greatest elements of the genre, and one of the least appreciated by those outside it. And while complaints that it all sounds the same aren’t a hundred percent unwarranted, to the initiate, The Kids Will Have Their Say and Victim In Pain (to choose two examples somewhat arbitrarily) couldn’t sound more different.
Hard Stripes – Hard Stripes (Vinyl Conflict Records)
The ability of hardcore bands, even some of the best in the genre, to sound strikingly similar to a decidedly recognizable set of influences yet still retain a compelling intensity is one of the greatest elements of the genre, and one of the least appreciated by those outside it. And while complaints that it all sounds the same aren’t a hundred percent unwarranted, to the initiate, The Kids Will Have Their Say and Victim In Pain (to choose two examples somewhat arbitrarily) couldn’t sound more different. Likewise, within the thousands of bands such pioneering albums have spawned (an amassment sizeable enough to have lead to a stark wheat/chaff ratio), occasionally artists will arise who can create something meaningful out of one-two drumbeats, hoarse shouting, and a handful of other time-tested genre elements.
Hard Stripes could easily be considered one such band. Though nothing in their approach would be unfamiliar to anybody with a working knowledge of hardcore’s history, the familiar ground covered by their first non-demo release is hardly the point. Possessing a ragged rawness, the record evokes individual predecessors less than it does a certain bygone era of the genre, a time before the music was overrun with clean-cut suburban youth crew factions, when it was a mean, messy stab at catharsis ejaculated into the world by genuine fuckups and outsiders who didn’t have many other options. Not to say Hard Stripes are comprised of the type of dude who would live in a van with their pitbulls down in a Lower East Side back alley back when that was a dangerous proposition (though not suggesting they wouldn’t, given the right/wrong circumstances), but their ability to harness that sort of feral intensity is very much to their credit.
It’s short, it’s blunt, it’s (as the band name suggests) hard. The release treads a middle ground carefully, but this is hardly a negative assessment. Though studied and informed, it hardly seems careful or derivative. Rather, this EP acts a solid argument for hardcore as being a sort of relay race. Hard Stripes are pounding the pavement, baton in hand, steadily pushing toward some unforeseen finish line. But were they to steal a quick glance back over their shoulder, they might see the Out Cold discography, the second Breakdown demo, or the New York Thrash compilation each at some point in the rearward horizon, hands on knees and gasping for breath, each a successive executor of a vision kept very much alive and relevant by their forward guard.
