Reason To Believe - The Next Door

I originally had something incredibly catty all set up to frame why Reason To Believe matters. But I honestly don't have it in me, especially in light of the events of the past few days. Let's give it a straight read, and let you decide if it's worth listening to 30 years after it came out.

Reason To Believe was a purveyor of that peculiar late-80s SoCal blend of youth crew hardcore, Dischord-style emo, and Sunset Strip hair metal. None of that is a dig; I'm not sure that sound could have come out of any place in the country that wasn't L.A. and Orange County. It also couldn't have happened at any other period of time. A few years earlier, and this would have been straightforward, Uniform Choice-like Cali hardcore. A few years later, and you would have got...well, you would have gotten Sense Field, which is what Reason To Believe eventually transitioned into. I remain a pretty diehard fan of Sense Field; "Building" should have gotten the recognition that "Bleed American" got five years later, and their unreleased record on Warner Bros. deserves a proper issue.

"The Next Door" was originally released by Soul Force Records in Scottsdale, a short lived label who also put out a pair of Ripcord American releases and the first Admiral 7". It was reissued after the first pressing by Nemesis Records, whose proprietor Big Frank Harrison also managed Reason To Believe. My copy is on Nemesis, a sharp looking second pressing that still sounds like it was a well-executed play to bring hardcore to a more mass audience. The rip comes from the CD version of RTB's 1990 LP, "When Reason Sleeps Demons Dance". I'll probably share that in the near future. In the meantime, give this a listen.

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