I popped into one of the many record stores that have popped up in the north Seattle suburbs in the past couple years today. I didn't know what I wanted; only that I wanted to hang out for a while, have a beer or two (it's a record bar, duh), and buy something based on someone else's taste.
It didn't quite work out that way. While my bartender and I discussed the finer points of late 90s power violence and I shared my opinions on Coalesce, my record tenders couldn't quite point me in the direction of something I didn't already own. They DID suggest Lip Cream's "Kill Ugly Pop", an Abrasive Wheels compilation, some Sleep records. All good recommendations; all recordings I already own.
In the end, I picked up a copy of World Burns To Death's "The Sucking Of The Missile Cock", a Portland crust classic, the Hardcore Holocaust release of which I probably sold in the mid-aughts to make a mortgage payment. This led me down the path of talking about records that Sonarize had reissued in recent years, which took me to Scandanavian hardcore, which brought me to Masshysteri, one of the most perfect punk bands of the past 20 years. This is their first of two full lengths, released by Feral Ward here in the States and by Ny Våg in their native Sweden. Masshysteri was the continuation of a line that includes the Vicious, Regulations, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Insurgent Kid, and INVSN. Hell, one of their members used to be in Doughnuts, a Victory Records band that I actively ignored in the 90s but keep thinking I'll finally check out one of these days if I can just find a copy of their full length in the dollar bin.
ANYWAY...
Masshysteri: good-ass band. It's hardcore kids playing power pop, which is my favorite performance style of power pop.
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