Holy shit, this is one of the best zines I've bought in years! It's fucking huge, the coverage is knowledgeable and comprehensive, it's consistent, it looks great, and the price is very fair (I can't remember but I think it was like $4 - and worth every penny). This zine basically focuses on old school styled hardcore, and while they certainly have a penchant for the days of yesteryear, they offer up some excellent coverage on contemporary bands that are still keeping the spirit alive. Included are great interviews with The First Step, Running Like Thieves (one of the best interviews I've ever read), Far From Breaking, Face the Enemy, and Damage Control. There are also some little columns/articles or whatever, a fair amount of pointed reviews (also focusing on this same genre), and then the real kicker: "Closing the Doors on the Anthrax: A History of One of Hardcore's Most Famous Clubs". This is a massive feature that takes up damn near half of the zine (if not more) with interviews of about a million different scene folks (from Ray Cappo and Porcell to Alex Brown and Kate Reddy) who talk about their memories of the Anthrax and often end up telling some rather amusing tales from "back in the day" in the process. A highly interesting read, indeed. All of the interviews and shit are accented by tons of photos, and the Anthrax feature has shitloads of classic photos and even more old flyers to boot, so it's visually engaging as well as providing an in-depth read. The zine is printed with color covers and relatively high quality black and white newsprint innards, and it's bound like a freakin' paperback book! The layout sort of combines a clean cut and paste type of look with an even cleaner computer layout style, but everything is really straightforward and uses lots of bold text. It's consistent in appearance and doesn't fuck around with arsty farsty tricks. It looks just like a crisper, cleaner, more legible version of an old school xeroxed zine or something. Very fucking professional. 100+ pages of fucking hardcore mastery. Hot damn. Pick this up if you're into this stuff, and grab issue #1 while you're at it, because that one kicks ass too. I can't fucking wait to see issue #3 from these cats.
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Impact - [email protected]
