We’ve partnered with some of our favorite websites to bring you each scene’s best upcoming bands, diving beneath the surface to give you a glimpse of tomorrow. In this monthly check-in with our friends at No Echo, we get the scoop on names like Fixation, Mugger, World of Pleasure, and so much more. Check out last month’s column here.
The world might be racing towards an extinction event, but hey, at least the hardcore music scene is alive and well!
Fixation’s The Secrets We Keep LP stayed in regular rotation at No Echo HQ last month. The Philly band features musicians who have also played in Chemical Fix, Drowse, and Wild Red; these hardcore wizards keep most of the songs under the two-minute mark, which is a chef’s kiss-worthy move around these parts.
Meanwhile, in Austin, Texas: "Leave it to me to finally become the front person for a hardcore band at 40-years-old, but here we are,” vocalist Anna Troxell told me, when I chatted with her about her new band, Mugger. Formerly of Philly shoegazers Creepoid, Anna’s latest endeavor strikes a tasty balance between blown-out hardcore and gothy punk.
Metallic hardcore doesn’t get much better than the vegan straightedge (xvx) duo World of Pleasure, on their latest EP. “I didn’t want to sugarcoat the anger I feel towards people who pay to kill animals for their own gain," singer Jess Nyx (also of Mortality Rate), told me about World of Pleasure’s blunt lyrical style.
Staying on that musical (and lifestyle) wavelength, A Knife in the Dark’s One Way Needle brought storming straight edge hardcore in the same fine spirit as Bridge Nine Records’ Foundation did a decade ago. And over in Newcastle, Australia, delinquents Grout dropped a 4-track heater of fist-fighting music for the whole family to enjoy.
