I just listened to this tape about six times in a row, which isn't hard because it's only two and a half minutes long. Perfume River are a d-beat band from Philadelphia. Upon first hearing this, it reminded me of "Another Religion, Another War" era Varukers, but a lot noisier. The vocals are grating. It even has one of those early italian hardcore "let's record the solo too loudly and just leave it that way" parts. Drown out your sickness with cymbal crashes and a mess of distortion.
I would never have bought this tape (I wasn't familiar with them at the time) if it wasn't for Noah recommending it while I was getting stuff a few youth attack updates ago. Their LP came out recently, so it seems like everyone's trying to get ahold of this. Boston Strangler is a straight edge band from....well...Boston. It features members of Social Circkle, Mind Eraser, Failures, No Tolerance and Rival Mob. All those bands are worth giving a listen to as well.
There's definitely some 80's throwback influences (Impact Unit, SSD, Negative FX) but it's still pretty interesting. My favorite on the tape is the first song. There are a few weak spots in terms of lyrics though. "If I Was You" is kind of an aggro "we're gonna beat you up if you keep running your mouth" kind of song not really relatable to me, and "The Truth" is really repetitive lyrically, but it's a "Glue"-esque unity song, so it gets a pass. There's probably something like 150 of these out there, probably less. It was initially pressed in a small amount and released by the band, and then No Way Records did their own version. I like the Boston Strangler logo, perhaps it'll be iconic in 30 years.
The Youth Attack update is scheduled for next Thursday (the 15th), so I figured it would be okay to finally post this. I was lucky enough to see them twice, and I thank Neo Cons for bringing them down here. Both shows were pretty great, though less people were at the second show (at some bar) and it would have been a better show if it was at The Swamp in Oakland. However, they wanted a "real venue" so they played to 35 people at a bar on a Tuesday. That show was mostly Jason and Jesse wrestling around, and at one point Jesse charged headfirst into the audience because no one was really moving. Noah was also nearly punched in the face by the Hoax singer.
Anyways, the first show they played in San Francisco (at Sub-Mission) was attended by a lot more people. Martin (Limp Wrist/Needles) took some pictures that will probably end up in some cool photo book somewhere down the line. Not a whole lot of people moved at that show either, but Hoax performed really well. It was all a little shocking seeing it for the first time: Jesse taking shots at people in the front row, screaming nonsense in between songs. Neo Cons and Neighborhood Brats were also good that night.
We spoke to them in the beginning of the show and they seemed fine to do an audio interview, but since Noah and I were taking BART back home, we had to leave and the bassist gave Noah his number to text later about the second SF show. Long story short, they ended up suggesting a written interview which never came to be. I saw a good interview in a zine later that basically consisted of all the stuff we were going to ask them (and more). Maybe I'll scan that sometime.
Noah later spoke to Jesse in Brooklyn and he said that Hoax is coming back to the west coast, so I'm excited for that. No real details but I'm sure those will come later.
So onto the music. This record is pretty similar to their first in recording style, though maybe a bit rougher and heavier (if that's possible). It's all new songs except for "suicide pact," which was re-recorded from the demo. I'd say "Down" is the best song on the record. They made a music video for "Sleep" in the middle of the night on a beach in Southern California.
You can (probably) buy this edition on ebay for 50 bucks, or the standard edition on Thursday in the Youth Attack update for something like $9. Seems pretty pricey, but you know Youth Attack with their fancy packaging and pop-up books. Hoax has a website, which is here and you can buy the record (on Thursday) here.
When I'm done listening to this record, I stick it back down Jesse's neck hole and call it a day.
