Two girls, two guys, eight tracks, five minutes of blistering hardcore/punk with a thrashy bite. Expect tons of high-speed attacks with relentless vocal screams and no letting up. No song hits the one-minute mark, they just tear straight through. There really aren't any "slow" riffs, just a couple of chord progressions that "aren't as fast". And when I say there's a "thrashy bite", I mean in a crossover sort of way, but there's no actual metal per se. A couple of the faster picking patterns do have that kind of an approach, but nothing comes out sounding metallic in my opinion. They've got a song called "Short Fast and Loud", and there's a reason for that (a reason other than the fact that the band members are involved with the mighty zine of the same name). As one might expect, the recording is pretty raw, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it. The ruggedness makes sense, and they handle it well. The mix is pretty strong, you can hear all of the instruments, it's not muddy or overly messy, nothing overpowers, etc. The CD-R comes in a jewel case with straight up D.I.Y. xeroxed inserts that are crude, but they pull it off. The lyrics range from somewhat humorous accounts of playing fast hardcore and working your ass off for the scene, to sarcastic political attacks on patriotism and the commodification of radical political icons. "Did Che Guevara even remotely think that his image would be mass produced and sold in the hippest of trend stores? Che's been bought and sold, Che's another icon made commodity, he's hit the mainstream. Not even in his wildest dreams would he have been this overexposed. What would he say to the consumers of today?" Good stuff. I wouldn't mind hearing a bit more variety, but if they keep their releases as short as this one it won't matter, because they blow through everything so quickly that there's no time for diversifying!
[self-released]
Running time - 4:53, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: Che Sells, Do Us a Favor]
V?etsek - http://www.karaterex.com/VOETSEK/
