Album of the Week – LA Needs a Riot: Bands from the Los Angeles Underground

Inglewood, California’s Riot Ready Records offer up 45 tracks of punk, street punk, hardcore, melodic hardcore, ska, skacore, skate punk, and whatever other style you can think of on LA Needs a Riot: Bands from the Los Angeles Underground

The LA based anarchist watchdog collective is also donating 100 percent of the proceeds to The Dignity & Power Now  organization, a grassroots organization founded in 2012 that fights for the dignity and power of all incarcerated people, their families, and communities.

45 tracks is a lot to wade through and not everything here is up my alley but I’m open-minded. There are a few killer standouts though. Right off the top The Lungs deliver a burst of hardcore fury with “Pythium” followed quickly by an impassioned, but sneering screamer – “La Sangre Corre” by Spanish-language punks Generacion Suicida from their 2017 album Reflejos. This band is so good.

These are two of the more well-known bands here but it’s worth going down the rabbit hole because there are some quality tracks scattered throughout. California killcore merchants Shred Bundy have only been around for a year but “Infamous Butcher” is a cool track of grinding hardcore. I also dig the trash rock and roll of Lady Hump‘s “Bad Things Happen” and there’s much to love about The Paradoks primitive punk on “Mind Control“.

 

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Capital Wasteland lay down some wicked crossover hardcore on “I’m Not Antisocial” and Hero Injection deliver “Reaper“, an absolute metallic rager. Back in my 20s “Bored Motherfucker” by Face Lift would’ve been on every single mixed tape I made. And by the way this is not the crap emo band you’ll find on Spotify; these guys play a scorching, fast hardcore like Stormtroopers of Death/Municipal Waste. Destruction Made Simple finish things off with the vitriolic “Panic“, a monster with blistering speed and gang vocals.

 

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Have a listen, I pretty much guarantee you’ll find something new here. Buy it, pay what you can because it all goes to a worthy cause and overall this is a pretty solid comp. Officially releases February 5, 2019

 

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Cribs

One foot in the door
The other one in the gutter

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