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What’s up Sorry Staters?
I rarely mention stuff about Bunker Punks here in my staff pick, but figured I’d give a small update on me n Usman’s label. We (and by we I pretty much just mean Usman) have been scrambling to catch up with the pre-orders for all the Scarecrow records. It seems like we’ll have very few copies (if any) of Scarecrow left over from the pressing after we fulfill everything. So I’m still unsure if we’ll have copies for Sorry State to stock or not. Good news though, we FINALLY have all the packaging in hand for the Fatal 7”. We just need to get those assembled, and then surely Sorry State will stock those. Thanks everyone for your patience!
Soooo, before I get into talking about my staff pick… I’m finding it more and more difficult to conjure the necessary brain juices to write something captivating in these staff picks we all do each week. I apologize in advance if my stream of consciousness-style write-ups basically boil down to: “Duuuurrr, it’s real good dude.” I’m sure my appreciation for the record I’ve chosen to write about this week will be no different. Here we go:
My friends know I have the tendency to gush about how much I love Totalitär, and also similarly ripping hardcore from Sweden. Because of that, I had several people blowing me up and asking, “Dude, have you heard this GEFYR record yet?” I had not, so I immediately went and checked it out. No surprise based on the esteemed opinions of my fellow hardcore nerd homies, but GODDEYUM this LP is a ripper! I don’t know how under the radar this band is flying at the moment, but it seems like everyone in the “Totalitär is the best band ever” camp is getting hip to it pretty quick. I feel like the secret will be out very soon. Some nerd shit, the band hails from Hudiksvall, the same city where Totalitär formed. So naturally, playing killer hardcore with great riffs is in Gefyr’s DNA. The cover art is cool, but unassuming, so when you drop the needle on this thing, you might feel unprepared for the imminent face-melting coming your way. While of course Lanchy’s classic riffing from the Hudiksvall godfathers is a good reference point, there’s something about the speed and ferocity in how Gefyr plays that keeps me from calling them a straight Totalitär tribute. A couple of tracks like “Överbliven, Oförlöst - Undergiven, Viljelös,” plow with such barreling barbaric force and the vocals sound totally shredded and gnarly… to me, the vocals are almost a dead ringer for No Security. For a more contemporary comparison, the whirlwind trapped-in-the-D-hole circular riffs remind a lot of the riffing in Infernöh. A song like “Hatets Anhängare 2” is less pummeling fast, and just has that classic groovy Swedish style riffing that makes you wanna drunkenly surge your way to the front of the crowd to violently and unrelentingly pump your fist.
Of course, as soon as I started freaking over this record, I told Daniel that we should stock copies. We got a stack directly from the label Flyktsoda over in Sweden. I’m not sure many (if any) other US distros are stocking copies of this record. If any of my sub-moronic ramblings convince you enough to check out this record, I highly recommend you jump on it quick!
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. As always, thanks for reading.
‘Til next week,
-Jeff