Hedge Fund-demo 11.11 (2011)

Hardcore punk has reached an interesting point in the last few years. As the grunge/shoegaze revival gathers steam, there's a temptation for bands to jump ship to the sunnier climes of MBV-/Nirvana-worship. Despite musical disparities, I see the whole "mysterious guycore" thing as riding the wave of '90s fetishism percolating of late: "oh cool! these guys were in bands in the (late/mid-)90s! They must be cool!"

Hedge Fund, a new band from Boston, straddles the line between HC and sloppy, gazey mucky muck. This four-track cassette demo is essentially hardcore punk played with a grunge attitude (or grunge played with a punk attitude). The opener, "Locutus" (sick Star Trek ref., no?) mines the vein Thulsa Doom quarried ages ago-piledriver drumming and overloaded guitar chugging.
But the next three tracks go in for the sort of fuzzy, squalling, meandering guitar I associate more with new bands like Psychic Blood as much as traditional HC name checks like Siege. It makes for some interesting listening: straightforward, shrieking intensity mixed with more complicated, grinding sludge.

Y'know ya love it. You can buy the radness here.