Sickoids – No Home (Grave Mistake/Sorry State Records)
It can be interesting to observe the manner in which certain strains of throwback aesthetics can evolve past their literalist boundaries into something more soundly realized and less regressive. For instance, the glut of 80s-style hardcore that popped up in the early aughts was at first a welcome breath of fresh air in a scene that was becoming ever more aligned with increasingly commercial metalcore and youth crew that seemed to get dumber and more regressive with the year.
Sickoids – No Home (Grave Mistake/Sorry State Records)
It can be interesting to observe the manner in which certain strains of throwback aesthetics can evolve past their literalist boundaries into something more soundly realized and less regressive. For instance, the glut of 80s-style hardcore that popped up in the early aughts was at first a welcome breath of fresh air in a scene that was becoming ever more aligned with increasingly commercial metalcore and youth crew that seemed to get dumber and more regressive with the year. It hearkened back to a rawness that hardcore had come to lack, but in turn it quickly became its own codified set of signifiers, drawing from an ever-smaller set of influences and becoming progressively more boring with each Urban Waste ripoff that was cast into the world. However, this small subset of hardcore has produced an even smaller number of bands that can tweak and mutate certain facets of the sound, so that the end result is transformed into a continuation of the past rather than a reenaction of it.
Sickoids, a trio whose members are split between Richmond, L.A., and Oakland, are among the newest of this breed of band. Their self-titled debut was widely heralded as being one of last year’s best, but unlike many albums that garner such accolades, this was hardly empty hype, a point solidified by its followup, No Home. There are some fairly noticeable points of comparison with hardcore bands of yore – Articles Of Faith’s rapid-fire vocal delivery and subtle use of melody, or Poison Idea’s confrontational bleakness, both come quickly to mind – but these influences are integrated seamlessly enough that the album doesn’t seem like it’s another band playing old-school make-believe. Rather, the songs possess a level of songwriting ability that most comparable bands would have difficulty approximating.
Though the record breezes by, with barely a dozen minutes worth of material crammed together, its relative brevity works very much to its advantage. No wasted notes present themselves, nor is any filler present. Instead the band trades in atmospheres that don’t lose a dour edge to their speed and don’t sacrifice any aggression to the lyrics’ verbosity. The songs charge along, jolting out of their forward momentum with starts and stops adroit as they are abrupt, careful incisions in the songs’ structures that require the members to display an instrumental competence rarely witnessed with this sort of punk.
So, while it certainly is the product of some fairly specific influences, No Home represents the brand of hardcore that can come from bands who understand their craft. Indeed, Sickoids understand it well enough that the degree to which their predecessors have left a mark is somewhat moot. With No Home‘s release, Sickoids have again demonstrated their ability to craft a bracing, compelling album–a brief whirlwind of negativity and disgust, bound up in some well-crafted hardcore songs that understand the value of their influences without remaining too strongly in their thrall. It doesn’t redefine hardcore, but it does help its particular subgenre forge some paths forward into fertile creative territories.
