Pills, injections, and psychosis

Named after a anti-psychotic, Haldol is definitely manic to say the least. Featuring members of Karoshi and Brainwreck, Haldol plays a mixture of crust, goth, surf and what ever other influences pop into the head of Geoff Smith late at night while he reads Dostoyevsky. This is only half of their upcoming EP titled "Contradictions" but from what I hear from these three songs it is something you will wanna pick up for sure when they finally press it. "Conversations With Holy Men" is the song that stuck with me the most, mainly because of the cool slide guitar part that shows up mid song. But saying that all three songs on this sample of what's to come are very unique, especially if you consider all the boring cookie-cutter stuff that Maximum Rock 'n' Roll is calling crust these days.

Contradictions EP Sampler

Mankind

This is one of those Nashville bands that a lot of people who didn't come to shows in 2008 probably missed out on. Mankind was a band that was centered around The Anchor. Some of you might not know what The Anchor is/was (not sure if it's still open) and for many non-christians that makes perfect sense. The Anchor was a church that happened to have awesome shows from time to time, thanks to the lead singer of Mankind. The fact that this band has some christian overtones going on might turn off a lot of you young Jebus-hating punks, but you would be missing out on a great hardcore band if you stopped reading now. The truth about Mankind is that yes, they had some christian themes thrown into the mix but what is said on this demo is not overtly preachy or over-zealous and falls more into questioning conforming to stereotypical christian beliefs. The music on this demo is crushing, and very energetic, with some obvious influences from some bands from this area that closed up shop and moved to Portland, along with some more current hardcore influences. As far as I know this was the only thing released by Mankind, which is a huge bummer. So to anyone who wasn't dumb enough to be scared off by the word christian and is still reading this post, enjoy and relish the fact that you weren't such a closed minded jerk-off to pass up some awesome music.

Demo '08

Us//Them

With a name meaning "death from overworking" you kind of already know what mood Karoshi was going for and they pulled that mood off very well. Ichi was Karoshi's only full length release as a band, though they also released a 7" ep that you can still get from the Anti-Corp distro. The music is a mixture of crust, screamo, and much more (if you truly want to know every single influence, ask Geoff I'm sure he will tell you in great detail if you sound truly interested). This music is not just a whole bunch of eco-political ranting with music thrown over it, unlike most crust you hear coming out these days. In this music you can actually feel the pure emotion running through it, and that was why Karoshi was so refreshing. If you liked what you heard on this album, expect a posthumous release of the last songs that the band wrote sometime in the near future.

Ichi

To worship an ass

Today I'm taking it all the way back to 2001. Have you ever looked at the Nashville punk scene and thought "man all this punk is dark as hell" well when I first heard this band and some of the other bands (such as From Ashes Rise) from the area that's what I thought. Asschapel just blew me away end of story. This is straight up thrashy crust that hates you and all of your friends. Highlights of the album are "Burn The Eyes" and "Total Worship", but the whole album is killer. At this point you might ask me what a Moog synthesizer is doing on this album, and my only response is that this is Nashville and our scene is in the business of messing with the boundaries of genres, and business is good.

                                               Total Fucking Worship

The children are our future

To keep things rolling here I'm gonna follow up with a newer band out of Nashville. Fenris are a group of young dirty kids playing dirty music, so there for I think they kick ass. I can never stress enough how much I love it when I get to see the next generation rise up into the scene and these kids are definitely  doing it. Very heavy stuff tinged with melodic clean parts and vocals that keep the mood just under complete misanthropy.
enjoy.

                                                          Animals EP