Music

To coincide with the 20th Anniversary of their classic debut album Begins Here, The Butterfly Effect have remastered the album and present it here in vinyl format on a double LP 150gm Clear Vinyl in a gorgeous gatefold presentation with new artwork. The 2003 release reached number 23 on the Australian ARIA Album Charts and was the band's first entry to the top 100, but not their last. Begins Here stands as a landmark Australian album and is now yours to listen to in the best way ever. 

Track Listing:

1. Intro
2. Perception Twin (feat. Flynn Gower)
3. Consequence
4. One Second of Insanity
5. Crave
6. Beautiful Mine
7. Filling Silence Intro
8. Filling Silence
9. Always
10. Without Wings
11. Overwhelmed
12. A.D
13. Outro

GELD make their Relapse Records debut with their third full length, Currency // Castration! The Australian band distills a despairingly hellish vision of the world into a thundering crack to the temple through an unsparing fusion of hardcore’s bleakest violence with metal’s ruthless strength-through-conviction. GELD's abrasive take on the genre is distorted through a lense of fuzzed out psych soundscapes; vocals truly sound like unhinged barks, while guitars, bass, and drums crash against one another frenetically, each track burning brighter and brighter.

Every moment of Currency // Castration is urgent. Tracks such as “Chained to a Gate” edge and scratch at a relief that is ultimately denied, toying with the nightmarish promise of a breakdown that never comes. Elsewhere, "Cut You Down" pulses with frantically itching riffs that stream forth. "Fog of War" snaps and snarls; while "Secret Prison" evinces the honed physique of Japanese hardcore fed through the broken brain of someone on a years-long Rrröööaaarrr-era Voivod spin-out.

Despite the band's innovative approach to the genre, GELD makes no pretensions at being “interesting” for interesting’s sake - As vocalist Al Smith puts it, “One of the most boring things people can do is try to dress up what someone else has already contributed to a genre and make it ‘clever’… We’re more interested in finding our own position” With Currency // Castration, GELD offers no promise of a higher purpose or resolve. Rather, they lean into dissociation, finding truth and meaning in the transcendental joy of simply escaping, surviving, existing.

Metallic gold/silver with red, blood red and oxblood splatter vinyl, limited to 300 copies (Imprint Merch exclusive).

Track Listing:

1. Currency
2. Chained to a Gate
3. Cut You Down
4. Clock Keeps Crawling
5. Fog of War
6. The Fix Is In
7. Across A Broad Plain
8. Hanging From a Rope
9. Gas of Corruption
10. Success
11. Secret Prison
12. Castration

Leveler: 10th Anniversary Edition, pressed onto Electric Blue vinyl and limited to just 150 copies.

This is Leveler like you've never heard it before! We fully re-recorded the entire album from scratch, changing song tunings, writing new guitar solos, and adding guest performances from Matt Heafy of Trivium, Misha Mansoor of Periphery, and Ryan Kirby of Fit For A King. The album was produced and mixed by Carson Slovak and Grant McFarland, and mastered for vinyl by Will Putney.

Track listing:

1. Empire
2. Internal Cannon (feat. Matthew K Heafy)
3. Divisions
4. Cutting the Ties
5. Pangaea (feat. Misha "Bulb" Mansoor)
6. Carpe Diem
7. 40 Nights
8. Salt & Light
9. Poor Millionaire (feat. Ryan Kirby)
10. 1/16/2011
11. Boys of Fall
12. Leveler

LP comes with a digital download card. Digital download of the album features a brand new track titled "X.”

Birthed in 2016 from a cross-section of beloved UK punk groups, London’s High Vis have steadily become legends by virtue of their passionate performances and evolving discography of poetic, progressive hardcore. Comprised of singer Graham Sayle, drummer Edward "Ski" Harper, bassist Jack Muncaster, and guitarists Martin Macnamara and Rob Hammaren, the band fuse the fury of English street punk with touches of Brit pop melody, neo-psychedelia swirl, wiry post-punk rhythm, and even bits of Madchester groove. To Sayle, such melting pot energy points the way forward: “For years hardcore had pretty clear boundaries – other scenes were separate worlds. Now things are getting more blended, drawing from different places.”

With 2022’s breakout Blending, High Vis expanded upon their self-described “post-industrial Britain misery punk”  with an anthemic rock sound combined with baggy grooves. Lyrically, the album was a leap forward for High Vis as frontman Sayle took a more principle role in writing the lyrics and melodies. Sayle’s took focus on social consciousness addressing the downtrodden and discarded communities across Britain while also looking at himself and his own emotional landscape. The process created something that feels universal and ultimately relays a message of hope.

The band’s third and latest full-length, Guided Tour, refines their lyricism and chemistry to its most potent nexus yet. Full of swagger and sneers, hooks and hope, revolt and righteous anger, the album’s 10 tracks hit like anthems for a new England. And while the songs’ specifics often speak to their native country in particular, the themes addressed are universal. Theirs is a camaraderie born of sweat and experience, years in the trenches of ripping shows and shit jobs, still fighting back, still fighting for something better. High Vis are proving themselves protectors of the flame, and avatars of the best hardcore has to offer.

Track Listing:

1. Guided Tour
2. Drop Me Out
3. Worth the Wait
4. Feeling Bless
5. Fill the Gap
6. Farringdon
7. Mob DLA
8. Untethered
9. Deserve it
10. Mind's a Lie
11. Gone Forever

Here, Hear is an ongoing creative series born in 2007 as a way to deepen understanding of themes and ideas present in proper album releases through added musical and lyrical context for listeners interested in small peeks behind the song writing curtain. 

Changing forms, approaches, and mediums periodically throughout it’s history, the current iteration of the project exists as creative writing prompts introduced and followed by one individual member before being passed along to the others one by one for contribution in a sort of musical game of telephone. The end results are songs written and recorded layer by layer, member by member, all around a central suggestion or restriction, discussed at length on Patreon and via recorded podcast conversations dissecting the experience.

The most recent entry, titled “16,” began with a prompt from bass player Adam Vass called “This Song Will Self-Destruct” where contributing members were challenged to “break” something periodically as the composition progressed. The final product is what you hear: five musicians who took five different approaches to self-destruction, for a host of different reasons, and a song that slowly degrades as it heads toward its end, though it remains fully listenable despite the nature of the prompt.

In partnership with Here, Hear, the last few years have seen the introduction of a new writing exercise called MEANTIME, which flip La Dispute’s standard music-first approach to songcraft in favor of entries constructed by individual instrumentalists around spoken vocal recordings. Born from a desire to remain creatively engaged while apart during COVID shutdown, MEANTIME songs are poems before songs, words written and recorded that come to life sonically only when passed from vocalist Jordan Dreyer to one of the band’s musicians for structure, texture, and mood.

Track Listing:

1. Thirteen
2. Fourteen
3. Fifteen
4. Sixteen
5. Kinross
6. The Crash
7. Light And Shadows
8. Reformation

With a mission in mind, SPEED are setting out to put Australian hardcore on the map. The band's new EP, "GANG CALLED SPEED", will be out June 24th Last Ride Records (AUS) and Flatspot Records (USA). Recorded with Elliott Gallart at Chameleon Studios, the six songs on the EP are centered around recognizing who you are in this world, taking ownership of that identity and not letting anyone tell you otherwise. Lead single “NOT THAT NICE” captures the band’s no hold barred approach, highlighted by a blunt vocal delivery and intricate guitar work. The video for the song, filmed and edited by Jack Rudder, serves as a continuation of last year’s massive single “WE SEE U” representing the vibrant world of the Sydney hardcore scene. Each record also contains an etched b-side, featuring a band photo by Jonathan Tumbel.

Second pressing:

Red vinyl (/500)
White vinyl (/500)

Track listing:

1. NOT THAT NICE
2. ANOTHER TOY
3. MOVE
4. BIG BITE
5. EVERY MAN FOR THEMSELF
6. KNOW YOUR FOE

"Singles Collection 2022" CD, remaining from the Lil Ugly Mane 2023 Australian tour.

Track Listing:

1. Replica Fireplace
2. Low Tide At The Drying Out Facility
3. Blue Sand
4. Pink & Rose
5. Easy Prey
6. Split Ends
7. Redacted Fog
8. Unassisted

"Singles Collection 2022" Cassette Tape, remaining from the Lil Ugly Mane 2023 Australian tour.

Track Listing:

1. Replica Fireplace
2. Low Tide At The Drying Out Facility
3. Blue Sand
4. Pink & Rose
5. Easy Prey
6. Split Ends
7. Redacted Fog
8. Unassisted

To catch everyone up: Australian hardcore band SPEED is putting their foot down on the world. For hardcore kids from Sydney, which is where SPEED’s from and what they represent, this is a first. Everyone in the band has been going to shows for years—”real moshers,” always up front, dancing. (The full lineup: Aaron Siow and brother Jem on bass and vocals, respectively, Josh Clayton and Dennis Vichidvongsa on guitars, Kane Vardon on drums.) During a lull period in their home scene—“there were no new bands going on”—the guys stepped up and tapped in. SPEED decided to start out hard and traditional—a high-level aesthetic decision that, every five years, an all-time hardcore band does. A reset. For their first year, the group referred to itself on flyers and in interviews, as two words—SPEED HARDCORE—to make things extra simple. This is what they’re about: Hardcore, played hard, played fast, “for us, by us”— explicit, immediate, definitive—hinting at all the crucial bands that have come before them.

Their new debut full length, ONLY ONE MODE, exemplifies their growth and distillation. It’s a concept album in one sense: a manual that explains, directly, SPEED’s beliefs, the five guys’ personalities, what they bring to the table, what’s special about their scene. Topics are sharp: “Real Life Love,” about the loyalty and realness they’ve learnt from hardcore, shows how SPEED connected through showing up; a depth of expression and emotion set against very punishing music. “The First Test” is full of dynamics—held notes, a tasteful flute break—and speaks on finding oneself as a marginalized individual—in Siow’s case, as an Asian-born Australian: striking out alone and growing in a beautiful and ugly world. “Kill Cap” displays real vulnerability—heartache, regret, spiritual themes, an homage to the friends and family lost to suicide. Lyrics on ONLY ONE MODE embrace perspectives, pore over big ideas and small detailed moments. About the tunes on the record: Harder than the single —more breakdowns, and longer ones; it’s heavy ‘90s metallic hardcore, in conversation with Hatebreed, Merauder, Biohazard. There are more groove parts; vocals are tough and emotive, there are none of the longer melodic parts that hardcore bands occasionally give in to when they rise to a popular level; all artistic decisions that are new for hardcore bands from Australia.

ONLY ONE MODE, like their previous records, is being released on Last Ride and Flatspot Records, their homes from the start. The album was produced by Elliott Gallart, Siow’s oldest high school friend; Jack Rudder, a longtime partner and collaborator, has directed all of SPEED’s music videos. The cover photo was taken by James Hartley, the prolific Australian hardcore photographer from the 2000s, when SPEED first started, as young hardcore kids, going to shows.

Track Listing:

1. REAL LIFE LOVE
2. DON’T NEED
3. NO LOVE BUT FOR OUR OWN
4. ONLY FOES…
5. THE FIRST TEST
6. KILL CAP
7. SEND THEM 2 SYDNEY
8. SHUT IT DOWN
9. I MEAN IT
10. CAUGHT IN A CRAZE

Full of Hell burst forth with incredible force from the small, dagger-shaped city of Ocean City, Maryland, 15 years ago. Over five full-lengths, five collaborative full-lengths, and countless splits, EPs, singles, and noise compilations, they’ve evolved at extraordinary speed, their music becoming more complicated and technical without ever slowing down or losing its soul. Everything on a Full of Hell album feels like a blur: smears of guitar, harsh noise shaken like gravel in a bag, singer Dylan Walker’s snarl and bite carrying him into outer space or into the core of the earth. They’re coiled, interlocking, impossible to penetrate, and they move with alarming speed.

Coagulated Bliss was written and recorded shortly after the band completed When No Birds Sang, their collaborative album with Nothing. Working with the Philadelphia shoegazers gave Full of Hell new insight into the emotional and artistic power of classic pop songwriting, and to the importance of following a song where it wants to go. “That was a good experience of learning how to find what actually services a song,” Hazard  says. “Even with Roots of Earth Are Consuming My Home, even when we’ve had an extreme grindcore influence, I still wanted it to be catchy.” Walker also cites the band’s work with The Body for helping him to “recognize that there was value in pop music.” Accordingly, Coagulated Bliss features some of Full of Hell’s strongest songwriting: Gone is the frenetic flailing of Garden of Burning Apparitions and Weeping Choir; in its stead is a richer, thicker sound, one that’s considerably less ornamented—and somehow heavier than ever.

Coagulated Bliss was recorded at Developing Nations in Baltimore by Kevin Bernstein, mixed by Taylor Young at The Pit Recording Studio in Van Nuys California and mastered by Nick Townsend of Infrasonic Sound in Los Angeles California. Full of Hell is Spencer Hazard (guitar/electronics), David Bland (drums/vocals), Samuel DiGristine (bass/sax/vocals), and Dylan Walker (vocals/electronics/lyrics), with new guitarist Gabriel Solomon joining following the album’s completion. Coagulated Bliss is out April 26 via Closed Casket Activities.

Track Listing:

1. Half Life Changelings
2. Doors to Mental Agony
3. Transmuting Chemical Burns
4. Fractured Bonds to Mecca
5. Coagulated Bliss
6. Bleeding Horizon
7. Vomiting Glass
8. Schizoid Rupture
9. Vacuous Dose
10. Gasping Dust
11. Gelding of Men
12. Malformed Ligature