Hot Load: Fate Unknown 12"

Hot Load: Fate Unknown 12” (Going Underground Records) Los Angeles’s Hot Load has released a couple of tapes and a 7” over the past few years that have flown under my radar, and now their debut LP is here courtesy of Going Underground Records. Hot Load plays fleshed-out, rock-informed hardcore punk that would leave me very surprised if at least one member didn’t have the Motorhead snaggletooth logo tattooed somewhere on their body. The reference point that jumps immediately to my mind when I listen to Fate Unknown is Feel the Darkness-era Poison Idea, though you hear shades of other bands who plied a similar trade: Long Knife, later-period Anti-Cimex, Turbonegro, or even Annihilation Time (if you turned down the Thin Lizzy knob and turned the Motorhead knob way up). While Hot Load’s music is as ferocious as most any hardcore punk you can compare it to, the band has grown past blowing their (hot) load immediately in a 30-second gasp of riffage. Most of Fate Unknown chugs along at a fist-pumping tempo, but that baseline can sink down into something slower and grimier or crest into a mighty crescendo when the tune calls for it. I think this kind of stuff gets boring quickly when it’s too slick, but Fate Unknown has a recording that’s beefy and intense, yet natural-sounding and clear enough to hear the band’s very accomplished musicianship. If you’re a fan of the aforementioned bands, this is well worth checking out. And if you don’t wanna take my word for it, they got Mike Lohrman from the Stitches to contribute a glowing promo blurb… you can’t ask for a cooler endorsement than that.