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Tag: Hardcore

  • If This Is Where It Got Us. What Good Is It? by Wow, Okay, Cool

    If This Is Where It Got Us. What Good Is It? by Wow, Okay, Cool

    Artist: Wow, Okay, Cool

    Album: If This Is Where It Got Us. What Good Is It?

    Release: September 04, 2026; Self Release

    For time immemorial, art and music have always been at the heart of protest. As fun as escapism is, there is nothing more important than being aware of what’s going on right now. Wow, Okay, Cool’s album “If This Is Where It Got Us, What Good Is It?” is just the tip of the Shit To Be Angry About iceberg. Maybe even just a crystalized raindrop on the tip of the tip. 

    Unabashed yelling and incredibly raw, ITIWIGU, WGII is a lesson in old-school punk. The unpolished realness is its selling point. There is definitely a sort of nostalgia to the DIY style that hasn’t been a staple mainstream punk music in at least a decade. No one just vents their frustrations into a microphone like they used to.

    Coming in as number one on my fave songs list is “Indie Industrial Sleaze Complex”. While I don’t have experience inside the indie music industry as an artist, I’ve seen some of the bands that built their fanbase on the idea of being poor and relatable and hating the rich only to get rich and gut music journalism within an inch of its life. Even amongst the fanbases, we have all encountered the person who cosplays poverty but falls into the comfort of their family’s money and privilege at the end of the festival weekend. Safe to say, this song touched a sore spot in me. It’s also weirdly catchy. 

    Khakis and boat shoes aside, “Harupex” being placed right after Indie Sleaze Industrial Complex, with its W.B. Yeats excerpt, is its own special brand of genius. At first, I didn’t get it. But wouldn’t leaving this fucked up circus be just another form of privilege that avoids the larger problem? Some of us are in it until the whole thing implodes. Willingly or not. 

    Tragic Symptom of being chronically online or intentional stroke of artistic genius, “Fuck, That’s Bleak” reminds me of either the infamous “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” cognitive test or the one R.E.M song. Either way, it’s like a fucked up word association game where every word connects to a government official. 

    Really I could go through each song on the album and tell you the ways in which it’s good. At that point, you should probably just listen to it and decide for yourself. Maybe it’ll get you thinking and getting angry as well. Or maybe you already are-

    Upset about literally everything going on in the world right now. Wow, Okay, Cool wants you to know that you’re not alone in that feeling. In a way it’s kind of inspiring. Anyone could channel their anger into any kind of art and that’s beautiful. 

    My two favorite things in the world are the word milquetoast and dunking on dipshit libs. Which means that this was a strong album right from the start as the first song is literally called “Milquetoast Libs (and the Fascists Who Love Them)”. As someone who loves playing Six Degrees of Fascism, people who play polite to keep the peace really fucking bug me.

    Punch Nazis and listen to Wow, Okay, Cool. 

  • New Dead Ends by The Best of the Worst

    New Dead Ends by The Best of the Worst

    Artist: The Best of the Worst

    Album: New Dead Ends 

    Released: September 19, 2025; Bad Time Records

    Best of the Worst, I think at this point can be considered veterans of the New Jersey music scene. “New Dead Ends” is their second release on Bad Time Records, but they’ve been making stellar Skacore jams since 2008. Personally, I have been a big fan since the last release “Better Medicine.” Their propensity to present social commentary flung at you with hard and fast instrumentals is endearing. This new release is no different. 

    Musically, “Curtain Call” is absolutely fantastic. Hands down my favorite song on the album. The synthy little bit at the intro of the song that melds seamlessly into the horns as they come in, is perfection. It tickles the part of my brain that runs solely on 90’s Nintendo nostalgia. Liz Facklemen’s vocal performance here is amazing and powerful. The contrast it provides against the angry screamy bits is definitely a pleasure. It also happens to be best example of aforementioned social commentary, as well. The song deals with the the experiences of women in the music scene that are horrifyingly all too common. It’s unfortunate when very small men get a minute amount of power; they use it to become predators. The song calls out this behavior and talks about how in the aftermath, the individual victims rarely have the power to dole out consequences. A sad reality. However, in vocalizing these experiences, what this song really does is give us, the music community, a choice to do something about it, moving forward. We don’t have to support known abusers. We don’t have to book them for shows or buy their tickets. And perhaps, if late at night these types of guys run into trouble in a parking lot, we can look the other way and pretend we didn’t see anything. That is after all the kind of culture abusers prefer and rely on. We can in fact choose to watch the legacy of abusers decompose. We just have chose to do it together. 

    Another song that really stuck with me is “Running Out of Time”. It is a slower paced reggae jam about how we often get so caught up in the monotony of life that it passes us by. I think the song heavily implies the question:  “Is it worth putting off the truly important things (whatever that means to you) to continue to grind though life’s busy work “crossing t s and dotting i s?”. In my mind, the thing that is truly great about the song is that the smooth tempo and chill beat serves up this Socratic wisdom with a matter of fact vibe. Rather than being a anxiety inducing hyper-fast ‘you better get off your ass and live before you die’ type hardcore song. Which I suppose would have also gotten the message across, albeit in a way that I believe would have been less impactful.   

    Last is the song “Misogyny”. At the risk of perhaps alienating some people; I am not a big hardcore fan. Let me explain before you get the pitchforks out. I don’t consider myself a hardcore fan because telling me something is hardcore will never inspire me to check it out solely for that reason. Now that being said, this is the kind of hardcore song I like. It’s got that social commentary that I am a fan of. The guitars are ripping and the cadence of the vocal performance right before it transitions to the second half of the song is absolutely sublime.  

    With “New Dead Ends”, The Best of the Worst have provided listeners with a robust and varied experience featuring an engineered blend of genres and sounds that only the veterans they are could have delivered. If you are a fan of Ska, Hardcore, or anything that sits between those two genres I think you should definitely give this album a listen. 

    If you like the album I reviewed here and want to support the artist as well as this blog please consider picking up the album via this affiliate link—>Purchase New Dead Ends by The Best of the Worst digitally via Amazon Music