In an astoundingly potent year for hardcore that is seeing beautiful and passionate efforts from so many bands from Gel to Fiddlehead to the upcoming Filth Is Eternal release, the return of Connecticut hardcore band With Honor is still a cause to celebrate.
From ‘War Pigs’ to the present day, metal and politics have gone hand in hand and Sacred Reich has never shied away from the subject. As far back as their Draining You of Life demo in 1986, the Arizona thrashers made it abundantly clear that fascism is bullshit, Nazis are the enemy, and that oppression in any form should not be tolerated. This steadfast opposition to dictatorship, corruption, and social injustice has served them well for over thirty years, but recently the band has found themselves in the unbelievable position of actually having to defend those views. Swamping their social media pages with insults and demands to “stop making everything political”, some of their so-called “fans” really seem to have missed the entire fucking point of Sacred Reich.
We have a LOT of time for UK Sludgey Hardcore/Metal act Allfather. Not only is their new album And All Will Be Desolation (Rotting Throne) a beast of a record, they also possess an arsenal of MASSIVE riffs, and those riffs also kill fascists. It’s true, it’s damn true! Staunchly political, and marrying this to a love of underground HEAVY music, spearheading a campaign to share and promote their contemporaries and those they love and share ideals with online, it only made sense to ask vocalist Tom Ballard to talk us through some of his favourite EPs of 2018. Continue reading