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Every song they play sounds like Thirsty and Miserable…the rest of Flag are watching them and laughing when they aren’t looking”. Rollins’s verdict on BL’AST in 1984. PLEASURE emerges 39 years later. What took them so long? BL’AST took the punishment and signed to SST despite the spite and laughter. PLEASURE isn’t laughing but there’s plenty of spite. Echoes of Leeds past, maybe - MOB RULES, PERSPEX FLESH, THE WOUND, the earlier bands of PLEASURE members... even ROLLINS BAND Lifetime, which was recorded down the road from where a few of PLEASURE eat their tea. But comparisons are simply that. This is Hardcore that places a hex, which deviates from instinct and follows no form. The thinker’s mosh or the mosher’s think? Tension, control, release. A war with no treaty. Those who get it will get it. “I’m such a soft cunt” is the message, it’s your message. Got the picture? Prioritise Power, prioritise PLEASURE.
Our take: Leeds, England’s Pleasure has a sound rooted firmly in the tradition of dark, nihilistic hardcore that begins with Black Flag’s Damaged and extends through everyone from Bl’ast (obviously) to Fang through the Melvins and Bleach-era Nirvana and all eras of hardcore punk since. The riffs are heavy but the vibes are heavier, with a bottom-trawling sound meant to evoke, soundtrack, or even trigger an actual psychotic meltdown. If you’re able to listen past the overwhelming negativity of it all, there’s a lot to keep the fan of dense and dynamic hardcore interested here. Much like Damaged, it feels like there’s more music here than the recording can hold. Rhythms range from driving, Negative Approach-inspired thrash to lumbering noise rock, but pleasure is always doing interesting stuff whatever mode they’re in. I love the rhythmic hiccup in the breakdown of the opening track, “Buzzed,” the skronky Ginn-inspired guitar solo in “Relaxation,” and the way instruments dramatically drop in and out of the full-scale assault of “Prayer Glitch,” perhaps Candy Samples’ most exciting track. That darkly bent song particularly reminds me of first album-era Double Negative, though that wouldn’t be an out-of-place comparison for any of these tracks. If you like your hardcore dense and warped, you’re gonna like Pleasure.