Furious and driving hardcore with a thick vein of steel belt corrosion eating away at the social norm with songs about false security, misguided trust, modern racism and police violence. The Pittsburgh scene is exploding with creativity and rage right now and Living World is right in the middle of it all thrashing and outsiding with the best of them. If you like any of their contemporaries, Speed Plans, Necro Heads, White Stains etc, you’ll be right at home with Living World.
Our take: Iron Lung brings us the debut vinyl from this Pittsburgh hardcore band, following up a couple of cassettes, including one on the hot Unlawful Assembly label. Pittsburgh has enough punks and punk bands that there seem to be multiple sub-scenes in the city, and I’m not sure which one Living World is most associated with. They have both the retro 80s vibes of the White Stains / Loose Nukes crowd and the youthful energy of the Speed Plans / Illiterates group, and they sound like they’d be at home on a bill with any of those bands. My first reaction to Living World was that they sound like a looser, nastier version of early Direct Control. As with Direct Control, the framework is classic US hardcore, but there’s a slight crossover edge to the riffing a la DRI, and Living World’s vocalist even sounds a bit like Brandon from Direct Control. After six brisk hardcore tracks, Living World breaks things up with the spoken intro for Ubuntu, a song they wrote for George Floyd (though it’s right back to ripping hardcore for the latter part of the track). There’s a chaotic energy about World that I like, and when y
Our take: Iron Lung brings us the debut vinyl from this Pittsburgh hardcore band, following up a couple of cassettes, including one on the hot Unlawful Assembly label. Pittsburgh has enough punks and punk bands that there seem to be multiple sub-scenes in the city, and I’m not sure which one Living World is most associated with. They have both the retro 80s vibes of the White Stains / Loose Nukes crowd and the youthful energy of the Speed Plans / Illiterates group, and they sound like they’d be at home on a bill with any of those bands. My first reaction to Living World was that they sound like a looser, nastier version of early Direct Control. As with Direct Control, the framework is classic US hardcore, but there’s a slight crossover edge to the riffing a la DRI, and Living World’s vocalist even sounds a bit like Brandon from Direct Control. After six brisk hardcore tracks, Living World breaks things up with the spoken intro for Ubuntu, a song they wrote for George Floyd (though it’s right back to ripping hardcore for the latter part of the track). There’s a chaotic energy about World that I like, and when y