Chicago’s SUBLIMINAL EXCESS finally follow up their raging 2020 demo tape with Witness, and it goes just as hard. Four tracks of uncompromising hardcore brutality—fast speed and aggression mixed with hard and heavy grooves à la BREAKDOWN. This shit gets me pumped, I get a massive kick out of it. When the four tracks are up, they leave you wanting more but, as Witness proves, good things come to those who wait. Highly recommended.
Listening to the first few tracks, I get the idea that if someone had never heard the RIVAL MOB demo but got handed this tape, they could maaaaybe think that this was it. It’s punk for devout capital-H hardcore kids. Mosh part, fast part (the catchiness and allure of such riffs haven’t made themselves known to me), then another fast part. SUBLIMINAL EXCESS, or “SEx” for short, don’t sound like they’re at their tightest, especially on “Psychotic Break,” and the final track “Burning Feeling” meanders for a minute with a noisy dirge, but then gets into a mid-tempo assault that would feel very modern if it wasn’t for the whispered INTEGRITY-like vocals that crescendo into Jerry A.-type growling. Nothing I write really matters since the tape already sold out, but then again only 100 were made. Is that a lot now? Does that make it a collector’s item? Is the market fixed? Regardless of those answers, it’s assured that demo-core is back.
