Angerboys How to Profit From the Panic LP

I’m going to make a food analogy here, sorry in advance. Hardcore, like food, is best prepared from the best ingredients and prepared simply with proper seasoning. No fuss in the mixing booth, the right blend of influences and new ideas, and mastered properly. While ANGERBOYS have some of the ingredients right, namely speed, this full-length just doesn’t sound right. For one thing, it’s not mastered properly. I’m not a sound engineer or a snob, but when there are differences between the overall volume from track to track, it’s not a “who gives a fuck” punk ethos, it’s annoying. Combined with the fact that everything here sounds way too upfront, with no room to breathe in the instrumentation, and the vocals isolated and unnatural (not to mention some truly irritating lyricism)—this is just an unpleasant record altogether. Whatever happened to “community not competition,” when you have a song like “Your Band … Sucks!” (yes, punctuated like that). They even reference Bandcamp in said ten-second “fuck you” to other, presumably local, bands. Mirror, meet band, where do you think I listened to this thing?