the push and pull

Here's a band that's copped a bit of hype this year amongst the local Australian scene; Black Coffee and their debut demo tape. Recently released by ROTP Records in an edition of 50 copies mixed amongst a few different colours, I scored a red copy.

The simplified story with this band hovers mostly around the fact that it's comprised of past members of the greats Hard Luck from Canberra and Faux Hawks from Newcastle. Some may be aware that both of those bands contributed to a split 7" around five years ago that would easily rank in the top ten of brilliant Australian hardcore records of the last ten years. Both bands were just so good. Based off these credentials, and some things I'd heard people say, I did have relatively high hopes for this tape.

And not to say that I've been massively let down, but I was expecting something along the lines of that Hard Luck sound continued. These songs have been written by the same fellows who wrote all those great HL riffs, but there's a much more streamlined, fast, thrashy punk sound going on here. I'd compare these songs sooner to Faux Hawks than HL, and that's not just because the vocals are handled by Dan, the old FH singer. Style wise it's just much more similar to FH with the fast, no frills, straight forward riffs. But even then, I wouldn't say that this will certainly please all FH fans of old. It's still a somewhat long shot from what that band was doing really. They cover the best Urban Waste song here so that may give you some kind of idea as to what they're getting at. I'd happily compare these guys to UW along with Antidote.

Insert is this big poster fold out on the over. All artwork here handled by Dan, the singer.

I'm glad to have this one in the collection, and I certainly think it's worthy of the hype that some people may be giving it. I just figure it's a sound that goes over my head a little. I just expected more 'meat' in the sound.