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Los Angeles' Hot Load deliver their first long awaited full length.
11 tracks of raging Punker Music drawing magic aura from Poison Idea - Feel The Darkness, Discharge, A metal tinge..but from a Japanese Punk angle so it's not overboard.
“Fuckin finally. My tape player doesn’t work. And I ain’t gettin a new one. I’ve missed so much good shit. My record player works..but these fuckin kids and their tapes..I get it. It’s cheap. It’s easy. And most importantly, they’re doing it themselves. But I need records, man. And here it is. They finally fuckin did it. These dudes’ve played in so many different kick ass bands in the LA area I can’t even count. Putting on their own shows, making their own shit, playing the fuck out of it every time they get the chance. And now this. They all came together and put a name to it. Stamp this in one in the history books and have a platter of goodness to remember it by. I love this kind of shit. DIY, punk rock, rowdy motherfuckers. Light yourself on fire type shit. Broken glass type shit. Back alley, underground, if you know you know type shit..as it should be..fuckin finally.”
- Mike Lohrman (The Stitches)
“Local heroes HOT LOAD don't disappoint with this ripping debut. Fans of RAW POWER, ENGLISH DOGS, POISON IDEA and even old school metal like TANK will probably dig this. but really those are just references, HOT LOAD is doing their own thing and it rules.”
- Jesse Michael (Operation Ivy)
"A raging debut by these hometown antiheroes. True rockers, champions of excess. Sonically, the bastard mutant child of bands like Poison Idea, Motorhead, Battalion of Saints, & Warfare if they'd been abandoned on the streets of Japan. Real "kick someone's head off/cut your own head off" music. When Jerry A said he's got a date with the devil... this band is that devil. And they're meeting you halfway in a fuckin tank!"
- Mexi Mike (Section H8)
"You think you’re ready? You have no idea. You think you know HOT LOAD. You don’t know this HOT LOAD, because these motherfukkrs have grown up. Fate Unknown is HOT LOAD realized; twenty five minutes of furious bombast that shits on convention and makes the case for a new metal/punk revolution. You have never heard a record this sweaty and full of fukk. So suit up and strap in: “Heaven is hot babe // Dig my grave.”
DISCHARGE // JUDAS PRIEST // DEATH SIDE // MOTÖRHEAD // HOT LOAD
- Robert Collins (Terminal Escape/ No Statik/ Conquest For Death)
"Hell yea it's new school but still sounds old school all crazy, like people get all wild in the pit and slam but they still play all fast and the singer gets down"
- Slammer
Our take: 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.
- Format Type: 12"