Spore Rabid Intent cassette
Here comes a new band from Richmond, a town that has had a lot of solid hardcore bands for the past few years (something in the water, I suppose). I am not sure I totally get the recent floral obsession in American punk bands but a compilation with POLLEN, ALLERGY, FLOWER, and SPORE would be ace. Maybe as a benefit for a local garden centre? I had never heard of SPORE before this review, and Rabid Intent is a lovely little ripper and, impressively, the band’s first endeavour into the studio. My favourite thing about SPORE is the supremely angry, harsh, and powerful crusty-sounding female vocals. Fuck me. I am a massive sucker for female-fronted käng-flavoured hardcore, and these songs sound like you are being grabbed by the collar and shouted at for twelve minutes straight, which in real life would be pretty traumatizing but is exactly what you want from a furious hardcore punk band. It would not be wrong to claim that käng hardcore is SPORE’s primary source of inspiration (especially the modern TOTALITÄR-inspired bands and PARANOID as well), but I am hearing a lot of American hardcore as well, especially with the numerous tempo changes and the breaks, so that Rabid Intent often sounds like a US hardcore band having a go at Swedish hardcore rather than the opposite, which seems to be what a lot of bands, like the excellent AXE RASH, try to go for these days. The distorted guitar sound gives the material an additional aggressive edge and some nice textures, too. On the whole, this is a relentless recording with a lot of energy, although there may be a little too many changes in the songwriting for my taste (and too much reverb). I do believe the band has a lot of potential and is very promising, and we will be hearing about them in the future.