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Kaleidoscope: Cities of Fear 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) New York’s Kaleidoscope returns triumphantly from a five-year slumber with their new 12”, Cities of Fear, on La Vida Es Un Mus. Here at Sorry State we have been huge fans of Kaleidoscope since they started, and while I think they were criminally underrated during their original run, it seems like more people are interested in Cities of Fear, and with good reason. Kaleidoscope hasn’t changed all that much in the intervening years, but the world has, and their brand of earnest, organic, and defiantly political hardcore punk feels even more potent and relevant in 2025. Musically, Kaleidoscope has always stood out from other contemporary hardcore punk bands with their intuitive, ensemble-based way of playing and composing. Kaleidoscope’s songs feel loose and improvisational, the band not so much reciting the parts they have composed as actively discovering and exploring them as they’re recording. Not that Kaleidoscope is a jam band… despite this organic quality, they pack their songs with killer riffs and choruses. See, for instance, “Controlled Opposition,” whose elastic, Sabbath-by-way-of-Flag riffing sounds straight off COC’s Eye for an Eye, and “Blood Minerals,” whose shouted chorus is as memorable as anything in the Crass Records catalog. But where Kaleidoscope does resemble a jam band (or, for a more relevant comparison, Fugazi) is how every bar feels unique, each moment suffused with discovery, intensity, and expression. The closing instrumental, “Dirge for the Disappeared,” is a great example, the song’s fade-in and fade-out implying it’s a fragment of a jam, the 3 members winding around this loping, waltz-y musical phrase for a minute and a half. It feels like the musical articulation of a walk in the woods, but by naming it “Dirge for the Disappeared” and overlaying a cryptic, muffled sound sample, Kaleidoscope injects the song with a striking poignancy, which serves as a great counterpoint to the more direct and confrontational, anarcho-punk inspired lyrics on the rest of the album. Either of these aspects of Kaleidoscope’s music would be great on its own—their channeling of the directness and intensity of 80 hardcore punk and their telepathic brilliance as a musical ensemble—but together they make Cities of Fear an utterly unique and powerful musical statement.