The plastic wrapping for this CD came off only about 2 hours ago. It had been laying here for about a week like that, because the credits and info-sheet that came with it didn’t really got my fingers itching to unwrap it: a Stockton band with members that could easily have been my kids (average age of 16 years), it’s their debut cdep and it was self-released. Anyway, I felt somewhat honored because one of the members handwrote that this was their first “submission” outside the U.S., hehe.

While unwrapping, I imagined some kid trying to sing with a scary voice and a guitarist that’s constantly keeping his eyes focused on the setting of his hands. Well, let me tell you that this little piece of work is very close to being astonishing, with a sound that is as energetic as anything I’ve heard coming from any renowned hardcore band out there. Of course you don’t have to expect the slick production and sound from a major (indie)label release, but I was really impressed that young kids like these managed to play this sound that as their press-sheet says “is influenced by bands like A.F.I. and Nerve Agents, and the hardcore punk rock scene in general”. The real treat here is that the lead vocalist is a girl that can both sing and scream as if she did this for many years. She sounds like the girls in Discount and Tilt when at ease, while I can’t think of a female reference when she goes in her screamo-mode, which happens quite a bit. Really amazing, and well combined with the guy’s somewhat unoriginal shouting backings. The music in itself is plain punkrock, and I don’t mean the current lowdown shit, this is damn fast melodic hardcorestuff, with good riffy and melodic guitars, a thumping bass, lots of breakdowns and some serious pounding drumming. The energy is very well controlled though, never really crossing that border of chaos. I’d say there’s even some post-hardcore sentiment in all this.

2 songs really are outstanding. “What Are Friends For” starts off with a somewhat uninteresting intro and growl by one of the guys, but then gradually becomes a song that really goes full speed and has some interesting vocal dialogues and ends with a real guitarded bang. “My Scars” is a slightly slower and somewhat more galopping song, maybe even a bit generic, but the chorus is goddamn catchy as hell and very maturely sang by that girl. "We've Had Enough" is a pretty cool song as well, it's in fact a cover of a song originally by Model American, but I can't say I know the original.

It’s really awesome to see a band with members of this age being able to produce ballsy music like this. Maybe it’s not all that impressive technically, maybe it’s not even fair of me to let their age speak to their advantage, but believe me when I tell you that there’s only few bands out there that sent me their first recordings and made me listen to their stuff as intense as this band did. You’ll have to be open to some fast and heavy, maybe even sometimes sounding a bit unfinished, punkrock, indeed a bit older AFI-styled, added with some screamo-punk (yes, again) but then there’s some very good hooks and riffs and the terrific ferocious female vocals that lighten the whole thing up. Just give that mp3 below a couple tries.