In 1997, Refused released a record that was supposed to signal a landmark shift in the way we thought about punk, or at the very least, non-beatdown hardcore. Although they released a fantastic record in the process, it wouldn’t be out of the question to say that contemporary hardcore bands are informed more by Modern Life Is War's Witness, Bane's Give Blood, or Madball's Hold It Down than The Shape of Punk To Come.When it comes, however, to the spazz-punk scene that has grown in the past couple of years, in acts such as those on the new four way LP The Sound of Young America (Flannel Gurl Records) as well as Pittsburgh’s Edhochuli and recently defunct acts We Were Skeletons and Comadre, the influence of Refused is more visible, as well as that of musicians as varied as Cap’n Jazz, Don Caballero, Orchid, John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus. And on the The Sound of Young America, the four bands featured—Capacities (New Jersey), Innards (Texas), Calculator (Los Angeles), and Ittō (Chicago)—throw down 11 tracks of controlled chaos and pure adrenaline that serve as the best possible representation of a punk scene that is both endlessly creative and really thriving.Listen to a stream of Ittō’s “Death Frenzy” below, and preorder the record via Flannel Gurl here.
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