Siekiera Demo Summer ’84 LP
Warsaw Pact just keeps on delivering, this time with the elusive and incredible 1984 demo from Poland’s first hardcore band. Almost forty years later, and these songs still give me chills—had they released vinyl at the time (or, let’s be honest, had they been from the global West), they would be mentioned alongside CIMEX and RATOS and STALIN, because these recordings are every bit that fierce, but instead they passed from cassette to cassette for decades before creeping onto a couple of small-run reissues (that already fetch collector prices). But this is how they are supposed to sound, how they are supposed to feel…primal, fervent, aggressive, honest, intense hardcore punk. The presentation is gorgeous, packed with photos and images from the era—this is as close to “essential” as anything you’re going to read about this month.