This past weekend I was reading some reviews for the latest Terror record entitled "Live by the Code" and, what sparked my attention, was how narrow-minded most underground music fans truly are still and how artistically imprisoned many artists are. "Live by the Code" is not a bad record, it's the same record Terror has always recorded and is EXPECTED to record by their audience, the most purist of the purists who drafted this code that the band apparently adheres to. I'm not shitting on Terror or this record at all and in no way is this post a review of that record. What I am pointing out is something that I feel is obvious to all in the underground, that too many bands overstay their welcome. One of the things that makes subgenres like thrashcore and powerviolence so special is the fact that the bands understand the importance of a brief life and appreciate that fact. The template of "write as many songs as you can, release two records, break up and wait until the kids call you for a go around of shows" is more respectful to the fans and culture in many ways. The sound and image doesn't become a stale commodity and the music is often higher quality because the bands recognize that they won't have very much of it and that it is artistically boring as fuck to write seven hardcore records.
"Fuck it, I Quit" - Scholastic Deth
Experimentation is, as it was in the days of "My War," not welcome in hardcore punk culture still in many ways despite what many followers may say, but passing the audiences off as narrow minded isn't exactly fair in its own right as well. Most bands spend most of their career releasing such similar records that by the time they are "over it," they end up releasing very pedestrian offerings akin to "Slither" or whatever the fuck that last Hatebreed record was all about. Hatebreed and Earth Crisis, Victory's cash cows, expected an audience cultivated on monotonous bullshit to welcome their "experimentation" with open arms and it failed, as well it should. If you're going to purposely compartmentalize your band that's fine (I for one happen to love many bands who play one chord and never experiment), but keep your career brief and try to write the highest quality material in as short of time as possible unless you want to become that guy at the party whose jokes aren't funny anymore and everyone wants to leave so they can go to fucking bed already. This ethos is perhaps best summed up in Punch's latest album entitled "Nothing Lasts." These youngsters get it. They won't be here for very long and in two years the hardcore kids will have new heroes, and that's fine with them.
-Joe