S.H.I.T.: What Do You Stand For? 12"

S.H.I.T.: What Do You Stand For? 12"


Tags: · 10s · Canada · hardcore · noisy · raw · recommended · sethspicks · spo-default · spo-disabled
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A brief but dense dose of simply hulking intense turmoil. Subtle terminology is trite, so to get to the point: S.H.I.T., the LP, blurs by in under twenty minutes of thrashing hardcore gristle. Gone are the tell-tale training wheels of delayed vocals and endless layers of feedback, here now are the tighter louder songs we'd hoped S.H.I.T. would write. A piercing musical rallying cry for the listless and ever approaching bulldoze march of the future, wrapped in cellophane transfers of melted early hardcore and the best of the last decade's fresh take on simplicity and power.

What Do You Stand For? comes on 150gr vinyl -either black, transparent green or bloodstained clear- housed in a 24pt reverse board jacket designed by legendary hc punk outsider and former S.H.I.T. designer, Jaybo. The intricately illustrated hellish image was produced with bleach onto a massive bedsheet, though the entire package is wrapped in a self censored slip cover, seemingly in the service of protecting the purchaser's dignity. Additional design by Ryan Tong. Also comes with lyric insert and download card.


Our take: Coming hot on the heels of their recent discography-to-date LP on LVEUM, here’s the long-awaited debut LP from Toronto’s S.H.I.T. It’s funny, I might not have noticed it if I hadn’t spent so much time with the collection LP so recently, but S.H.I.T. has changed things up for this LP. A lot of that might be down to a change in the drummer position, as Ivan from Kremlin and School Jerks now mans the skins. The first thing you’ll hear is that S.H.I.T. is way faster on this release than they’ve ever been before. They blaze along at a scorching, Kremlin-esque tempo for the entire record, only slowing things down for the final track, “Losing in the Twenty-First Century.” Everything else is familiar—Ryan’s vocals still have a ton of reverb and the band remains an unfathomably deep wellspring of classic riffs—but the faster tempos change the overall vibe somewhat. Listening to earlier S.H.I.T. releases was like riding a rickety old wooden roller coaster, like the car could fly off the tracks at any moment, or maybe the entire structure would splinter and send everyone hurtling toward their deaths. They seemed unstable, and consequently dangerous and terrifying. However, on What Do You Stand For?, S.H.I.T. are in full-on battering ram mode. Rather than a rickety old wooden coaster that makes you fear for your life, this is one of those newfangled, heavily engineered coasters with wild top speeds and an impossible number of twists, turns, and loops. In other words, S.H.I.T. is now on the level of finely honed, razor sharp hardcore bands like Blood Pressure and Impalers. I’m sure some people will prefer one era of the band over the other, but even if their center of gravity has shifted, S.H.I.T. remains one of the most powerful and exciting hardcore bands in the world.