Let's start off with Core Of Anger.
Most of you probably don't know them, and that's just fine. If you are interested in their official biography you can go HERE or THERE. The last one is a bit more complete, since it already mentions the band called it quits... Anyway, this band is not mentioned here for it's musical qualities (which they have none the less, don't get me wrong) but simply because this band was from Roeselare (Belgium) were I grew up. I knew the guys prior to the band and when they started playing shows I've seen them quite a few times. Line-ups changed but the band never lost sight of who they were. I believe somewhere in an old sketchbook I still have some drawings I made for the time they were called "Murder 101" (which was really short).
Anyway, they released a first demo in 2002, which I sadly enough no longer have, so no pictures here, but I've found a few mp3's on an old hard-disk, so I'll include these too. If memory serves me correctly me and my friend Junior even wrote a lyric each on this one, but hey, it's been a while... Quality-wise this is not a game-changer, not to say it's pretty bad. The songs themselves are pretty straight-forward metalcore beatdown or however you wish to call it.
After they did a small tour with Everybody Gets Hurt (certainly to be covered here later) they managed to get signed to Reality Records, a DIY hardcore label based in Belgium, that had already put out Madball, Kingpin, The Setup, Settle The Score, Everybody Gets Hurt and others, so it was a pretty nice deal! I remember they did a tour with Arkangel a bit later, but as it mostly goes with bands, things didn't last. People started studying further away, getting jobs, throat problems, you name it, so in 2007 the band called it quits... One of their members still sings in Restless now, the rest of them I have no idea... I could bore the hell out of you with more stories about them, drunken times and all, but I'll keep those for at the bar... I'm not going to include their last cd, I'll have a word with the guys in Core Of Anger before I do so.
BUT.
I will make one exeption. Kartel have always been one of my favorite bands coming from the big smoke. They have the coolest vibes, funniest shit to say on stage and mix the oldschool New York style perfectly with the harder stuff... And next to all of that, the guys themselves are simply great. First thing I heard from them was the Skeen Demo, a four track demo that was great, so I checked out the Southbound Split they did with Ninebar & Diction, two other great bands from London.
Great stuff from all the bands, but it wasn't until the "Rise Of The Guttersnipe" album came out that I totally realized just how good this band is. The lyrics were awesome, the music was hard but yet had some distinctive sound to it... Nice oldschool parts, hard breaks, LBU shoutouts, everything about the album just worked. Sadly enough not too long after that, one of the vocalist (Mean Pete) parted ways with the band, which left only DBS on the vocals. During some time they have been looking for how to cope with this the best way, but when their free sampler cd of "Gutter Music Volume 1" came my way I understood that they had found it.
What I didn't realize was that they did way more than this. When the album finally dropped, it truly blew my mind. Music-wise all was still about the same, but this time they had a superb production to it. The lyrics are practically some of the best I've read in a long time on a hardcore record, the vocals are diverse and crushing, really nothing about this album is flawed... If someday soon Knuckledust would be calling it quits, which we all would very much hate of course, Kartel is ready to take over the throne of London Hardcore.
Not content to stand in line waiting just to die
We're rising up to claim our piece of the pie
No time to take aim come out shooting from the hip
To push us too far was to let your grip slip.
Get yourself this album through the Rucktion Webstore or anywhere else, you won't be disappointed!
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