Some people like their hardcore punk to have a positive feel.
Some people like their hardcore punk to be melodic or easily digestible.
If you are one of those people, stop reading this right fucking now. This is not for you.
The new LP from Upstate New York's own Wet Specimens' Over Pale Bodies is ugly, dirty, noisy, and fucked up. I don't want to spend much time comparing it to other bands, but maybe if you put early OC hardcore punk bands like Adolescents and TSOL and filtered it through the lens of Sakevi Yokoyama, you might be close.
Wet Specimens vocalist Colin told me that the album is best listened to on vinyl, because the songs are threaded together with noisy interludes that tie everything together and give it a "haunted house atmosphere" (his words, not mine).
That phrase might conjure up some sort of try-hard mallpunk imagery, but think about it more like, you're hanging out with some dudes with leather jackets, drinking a cold beer, and someone asks if you want to go see a dead body in the abandoned asylum on the other side of town.
'Over Pale Bodies' is 13 songs of raging, spiteful hardcore punk with enough weirdness to make it interesting. It's easy to get lost in the shuffle these days, and you kind of need something to set you apart. These guys fuckin got it.
Hot track for me- the end of Side A, "The Last Iron Lung."
Get It
- Brain Slash Records (Vinyl)
- Bandcamp (Digital)
Tagged: wet specimens
