Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/wrong-generation/1535816008
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0ENzm2HTf7mfFjWZ7CaB5u
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Nm3JIPr3w&list=OLAK5uy_knEEYCSEk8ai9vRtXwRnbrJ_bSVR_5JA8

The hardcore meets hip-hop trio FEVER 333 are back to their roots with a new EP called WRONG GENERATION. While their last release, STRENGTH IN NUMB333RS, tended to lose their punk influence in exchange for more nu-metal influences, WRONG GENERATION ditches that side-step and continues from where they first started when the broke on to the scene in 2018 with Made an America. In my opinion, this is a welcome return to form. These guys seem most comfortable when they are making rebellious music that may not appeal to everyone, rather than their attempt at mainstream acceptance by employing more accessible song structure and instruments.

Drummer Aric Improta has never sounded better so far. While he's always been able to dial into a groove a bit, he feels more like the mover you'd like the drummer to be in a hip-hop band, rather than just playing keep up with the melody section. This does mean guitarist Stephen Harrison isn't quite as prominent in the tracks, but that doesn't mean he's not doing great work. Harrison takes more of a cue from Tom Morello in this album, following the rhythm section and getting in the groove. Vocalist Jason Aalon Butler sounds best when he's doing his high pitched screams and spoken word-type rap rather than his cleans (which sound a bit too much like a bad Chester Bennington impression), and he mostly stays away from cleans on this album.

Butler's lyrics still feel a lot more than STRENGTH IN NUMB333RS and are probably the one thing where you can see a through line from the beginning of FEVER 333 to now. His focus on LA culture, black liberation, police violence and more gets shaper with every release.

For fans of Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy and Stray From the Path.

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/transitional-forms/1502187566
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/6pHXuiWvMSPTyBb0hHe8Yv?si=gPRk-8hoRD2qoFZI91LSfg
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYQhPJrQIlgNxrODF9mS-wAC5BS6jET0c

Baltimore hardcore outfit Sharptooth is back with their sophomore effort and it's no slump. The riffs are crunchy as hell and the vocals are more brutal than ever. Remaining is Sharptooth's political edge, which is as sharp as ever. Stand out lyrics include "You're not a feminist just because you fucked one" and the album opener "This is a song about nothing/Oh no, not a single thing/'Cause in the absence of content/I hope that you'll forget/That all this shit never meant a thing."

Lauren Kashan's vocals are vastly improved. Her unclean vox are much more guttural while her cleans include more harmonies and layered work. Fellow song writer of the group Lance Donati employs a lot of inverted power chords to keep the sound aggressive and explosive.

For fans of political hardcore punk like Stray From the Path, seeyouspacecowboy, Knocked Loose and Every Time I Die.

Hi folks, I was recently introduced (at a relatively superficial level) to the existence of the "Taqwacore" sub-culture of Western punk music. The duality inherent or apparent in this type of self-expression is absolutely fascinating to me, and I would love to learn more about it.

I personally find it a little hard to understand exactly how these musicians reconcile the anti-establishment and maybe progressiveness of punk with many tenets of Islam; the concept of organized religion seems inherently establishment (and dated) to me, and yet these groups somehow embrace both ends of the spectrum. I'm very curious if any Tildesians have opinions on Taqwacore bands or thoughts on the sub-genre as a whole!