Ammo: demo cassette

Description

Chaotic, fast hardcore from New Jersey and New York. AMMO pulverizes the listener with non-stop blasts of aggressive noise featured on this 6 song tape. Blown out guitars, precise drumming, and vocals straight from a basement of fuckin’ frustration, man. A must own for true HC/punk/metal freaks. Features current/former members of Night Birds, Altered Boys, Big Bad Wolf, and Primitive Lips.

Our take: Demo cassette from this New York / New Jersey combo and its one of the most authentically raging NYHC homages Ive ever heard. Antidote, early Agnostic Front and the Abused are the obvious reference points, and while most bands that go for this style sound too modern and tame, Ammo sound as raw and wild as the classics. While the sound quality is bad by conventional standards, the energy isthere, and either Ammo got very lucky or they realize thats what separates a memorable hardcore record from a forgettable one. Another thing that Ammo gets right that so many other bands get wrong is their combination of musical sophistication and dont-give-a-fuck attitude. The playing is loose and theres the occasional choice that strikes me as unconventional, like the lengthy guitar solo on the first track, Nausea Nightmare, that stands out even more because there isnt a rhythm guitar track underneath it. But on the other hand Ammo can be quite musical, with tempo changes and tricky transitions that are way harder to pull off than they seem, much like the tracks on United Blood. The vocals also follow this pattern. PJ, Night Birds guitarist, is Ammos singer, and his musical ability shows through in the inventive vocal patterns he composes. But on the other hand his actual performance is fucking unhinged, like a prolonged convulsive fit thats always just on the verge of losing its tether to the music. This is the real deal. Ammo havent just reenacted New York hardcore on this tape; theyve embodied it.