Latishia's Skull Drawing: Romanticized 12"

Latishia's Skull Drawing: Romanticized 12"


Tags: · 10s · hardcore · spo-default · spo-disabled
Regular price
$12.00
Sale price
$12.00

Do any of these apply to you?
•Constant irritability
•Significantly reduced interest or feeling no pleasure in all or most activities
•Significant weight loss when not dieting, weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite
•Insomnia or increased desire to sleep
•Fatigue or loss of energy
•Feelings of worthlessness, or excessive or inappropriate guilt
•Trouble making decisions, or trouble thinking or concentrating
•Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide, or a suicide attempt
If so, you are listening to the right record.


Our take: I've been hearing the name of this Philadelphia band featuring Matt from Salvation on vocals being tossed around for a while now, but this 12" is their vinyl debut. I have to say, the first few times I listened to this my jaw was completely on the floor. I'm not even sure where to start with describing it. It's fast, heavy, and the songs are short like hardcore, but the rhythms are all really choppy and strange, almost Beefheart-ian in their quirkiness. The guitarist is also a complete wild man... the playing here is insanely complex, but not in a flashy, playing-scales-really-fast kind of way... instead, the guitar lines seem almost atonal in places, but at the same time incredibly catchy and memorable, a quality that' emphasized with some really tastefully done double-tracked harmonies. In a couple of words, it sounds like hardcore completely deconstructed and rebuilt from the ground up, and in that respect it reminds me a bit of Gravity Records-type bands from the 90s, but this is so much heavier and angrier than any of those bands that that comparison doesn't really fit because the vibe here is so utterly different. I mean, there's plenty of Black Flag, Void, and Saccharine Trust in the mix here, so if that's your idea of hardcore then you will definitely be on board with this, but it doesn't sound retro or like a rehash at all... it sounds like something that couldn't have been made at any other time than now. I suppose if you're into the hardcore-meets-fine-art-with-a-dash-of-black-metal aesthetic of many Youth Attack releases you'll also like this, but this feels so much substantial than most anything on that label. Basically, if you like your hardcore dark, angry, and just a little bit left of center I can't recommend this record highly enough.