Stick Tight

Belgium's Not Afraid dropped their debut LP, "Locked Out," a few months back.  Comprised of members of True Colors and Justice, this band sounds more like the latter than the former, taking big cues from late 80's NYHC - especially Warzone.  This was a split release on React Records in the US and Powered Records in Belgium.  I picked up the orange variant, which was exclusive to React, and Powered had an exclusive blue variant.

Exit Life

Ringworm has to be one of the most consistent bands in hardcore.  Although their first two LP's are their best material (and that is very unlikely to ever change) I can't think of another hardcore band that has consistently released solid LP after solid LP.  That's not to say that they've all been perfect records, but I can't think of one of them that flat out sucks.  The Cleveland band continues this tradition on their latest output, "Hammer of the Witch."  Released on Relapse Records (kind of a weird pairing, but I think it works) this record is a step up from, "Scars," which I found at times to be kind of boring.  I'd even put this one above, "The Venomous Grand Design," and on certain days, "Justice Replaced By Revenge."  This is just an overall good record, and one of the band's heaviest to date.

As per usual with Relapse releases they did 100 copies of this that weren't sold to the public.  I came across this one on Discogs a few weeks ago for a very reasonable price, so I had to snatch it.

Here To Stay

To say I was looking forward to the debut 7" from DC's Protester would be a bit of an understatement.  The (at the time, one man) band released a killer demo followed by a promo tape earlier this year featuring two of the tracks on this EP, and two Agnostic Front covers.  Fast forward to a few weeks ago and Trash King Productions put this bad boy up for sale.  I ordered this thing with the quickness (as evidenced in the picture below).  This EP does not disappoint in any way.  If you need a reference point for how this sounds think a mixture of early NYHC/BHC with some early youth crew for good measure.  Awesome stuff here, and well worth the wait.