Dog Flashback: Demo cassette

Description

Members of Los Crudos/Punch in the Face/14 or Fight riffing on burly, angular MWHC. Explosive riffs with sharp vocals that cut through like shrapnel. This was recorded when the US was already a powder keg, and listening to it now from behind our masks, waiting for the bomb to drop, it’s unfortunately all too pertinent.

Our take: Foreign Legion Records brings us the demo tape from this hardcore band from Chicago. According to Bandcamp, this demo came out in December 2019, but Im glad Foreign Legion has given it a wider release. Longtime followers of Chicago hardcore will clock Ebros distinctive vocals right off the bat, and fans of his band Punch in the Face will love Dog Flashbacks pure hardcore sound. That being said, this recording is looser and rougher around the edges than the PITF stuff, but the approach is similarly streamlined. The guitar is a blizzard of power chords (punctuated only a couple of times with unison bends or chaotic bursts of noise), the vocals and bass charge forward without letup, and the drums pound away with power while leaving room for plenty of catchy rolls and fills. Its very much in the style of SOA, Negative FX, and Negative Approach, but in the hands of these hardcore veterans, the style sounds classic rather than tired. The tape ends with a chaotic run-through of Arms Race by B.G.K. No bullshit here, just rippage.