Drill Sergeant

Drill Sergeant Grim New War EP

Philly punks DRILL SERGEANT dropped their latest EP Grim New War and it rips; cool thrashy hardcore with rabid vocals reminiscent of FORESEEN and CHAIN WHIP. Each track here packs a nasty punch, but none more than “Cries for Justice,” which features an unexpected shift to powerviolence with blastbeats that are sudden enough to cause whiplash. It also features someone named “the Meat Man” on backing vocals, so you already know it’s gonna be crazy. Highly recommended.

• Reviewer Eric Anderson
• Label Refuse
• Issue MRR #483 • August 2023

Drill Sergeant Vile Ebb LP

Echoey and cavernous hardcore from this Philly-based band. Vile Ebb is their debut LP for Denver’s Convulse Records, after 2020’s The Cosmic Leash demo. DRILL SERGEANT walks a line between vicious ’80s hardcore and just full powerviolence assault. The songs are short, dynamic, and almost dramatic in their take-no-prisoners approach. Hard to have a favorite song; all the songs come in a line of successive brutal blows to the head, giving you a really satisfying punchdrunk feeling. But I’ll give it a try. I really like “Real Evil,” which is part INFEST, part NEGATIVE APPROACH, and the closer song “Sense of Community,” with its sonic barbaric battle against your senses.

• Reviewer Miguel Franco
• Label Convulse
• Issue MRR #456 • May 2021

Drill Sergeant The Cosmic Leash cassette

Philly hardcore brutality with a raw, cavernous production. The pedal-augmented guitar tone unleashes some truly horrifying feedback screams. Stylistically, you could call it powerviolence, but it’s more bashy than chuggy—somewhere in between HERESY, INFEST, and YDI. Lyrically a bit tortured, written in the first person and with rich, damning vocabulary. A shock to the system.

• Reviewer Matt Badenhop
• Label self-released
• Issue MRR #450 • November 2020