Despise You/Coke Bust Split 7" Review

For those so far uninitiated, "powerviolence" is a hyper aggressive style of music taking its main cues from 80s hardcore punk, grindcore, and, oddly enough, certain styles of progressive rock. This means short songs at blinding speeds, blast beats, sludgy breakdowns and tempos that can shift on a dime. Half the fun of powerviolence, coming from an admitted superfan of the genre, is the twists and turns you get while listening to each 30 second burst of high-speed noise; you might think that you may be only getting two or three riffs per song with those kinds of lengths but in 30 seconds it's easy to get blindsided by a half a dozen different riffs that don't even share a similar tempo.

While I wouldn't call this split legendary or anything, that doesn't mean that it isn't packing some tasty riffs and a good time to offer. Both sides go about four and a half minutes with Despise You taking the lead, who are just as good as you remember them being if you've given the band a listen already. If you haven't, then expect a lot of back-and-forth between crunchy and sludgy beatdown riffs and blast beats with the occasional ride into the standard 1-2 1-2 punk rock beat. This side is bookended by two slow, minute-long riffs which serve as a both a nice bracer and come-down for all of the thrashing that happens in between. The band has a second singer, Cynthia Nishi, but she only shows up for a single track, which is a bummer because her voice adds a fit dynamic to the music when going back and forth with scruffy lead singer Chris Elders. A nice, pleasant burst of sound.

When the Coke Bust side kicks in, however, you know business is about to pick up. Coke Bust resembles an old hardcore punk band compared to Despise You, but their music is anything but sloppy. There might be bands that can go a little faster, but I don't know if anybody is tighter than these guys. This is a well-oiled machine feeding itself off of bands like Youth of Today and Septic Death and cranking out precise hardcore punk that WILL step on your lungs and force all of the air out of you. Great stuff if you wanna slam your foot on the gas and not ease up.

If you like fast, loud, simple and precise, enjoy yourself and give it a shot. There is a lot to enjoy here for folks who are looking for something punishing.

If it turns out that you like this kind of stuff and you are interested in listening to some more, this is a little list of bands that might catch your interest:

• Infest (Kick-started the powerviolence genre with their short songs, and straight-ahead, no-bullshit style)
• Spazz (Wacky and full of samples from movies, offbeat instruments like banjos and saxophones, songs about stupid shit, and a different split with another heavy-ass band for every day of the week)
• Man is the Bastard (SUPER progressive in terms of experimentation, no guitars but chock-full of strange time signatures and irregular song patterns)
• Chepang (I honestly don't know how much more intense you can get without breaking your equipment, these guys are all over the place and they mean business for every second of every song)
• Afternoon Gentlemen (Bringing a party-thrash vibe with an endless amount of terminally short songs about drinking beer)
• Gets Worse (A UK outfit with a heavy riff for any occasion. Get ready to throw down and if anybody tells you that Weekend Nachos in better, then spinkick them back to the fifth-grade pit they crawled out of)