Strike Anywhere release first 2 songs in over a decade, off new EP for Pure Noise

May 13, 2020

Richmond melodic hardcore greats Strike Anywhere have announced the new Nightmares of the West EP, which will feature their first new music in over a decade (they last released Iron Front in 2009). Having put out music on Jade Tree, No Idea, Fat Wreck Chords, Bridge 9, and more over the years, the veteran band have now hooked up with Pure Noise Records, who have been on fire lately, and who will release Nightmares of the West on July 17 (pre-order).

“We wanted to write things that we felt really fresh about and that revealed something new,” says vocalist Thomas Barnett. “It was almost like this refresh, this restart, where we found ways to write songs that not only moved us, but also reflected the times and our ages. But we definitely feel inspired, and this record is a platform for us to hopefully – in time – play shows, connect with community, and help keep those little fires lit in ourselves and in others through the music and those shared experiences. These songs are the conversations that we want to have and the feelings that we still really need to share.”

“It’s speaking to what’s happening now, obviously,” he adds. “This system, this machine, this view of history has deep, fatal flaws. And it’s not just something for people to talk about academically, or, you know, in little groups, like this is something that is writ large now, when it hasn’t been in our lifetimes. And the critical failures of the view of America that the view of capitalism equating with freedom, the view of nation states, all this stuff that’s past its sell-by date, itself, like these ideas, that were flawed to begin with, and nobody was honest about it. And now, unprepared as fuck, here we are, and we really need to say ‘Okay, look, we can reorganize this. This thing happened 200 years ago, or the western hegemony of the globe happened 400 years ago and these were deep missteps. And we can either annihilate ourselves by trying to justify it to death, or – to quote the Bouncing Souls – we can find what’s good and make it last.”

They made the EP at Baltimore’s Salad Days Studio with veteran hardcore producer Brian McTernan, and it features six new original songs plus a cover of “Opener” by UK punks Blocko in tribute to that band’s drummer Marc ‘Mates’ Maitland, who took his life last year. Two songs from the EP are out now: the fast-paced ripper “Dress The Wounds” and the mid-tempo, throat-shredding punk anthem “Imperium of Waste”; both are great and both make it sound like no time has passed since 2009. If the EP has more where these came from, we’re gonna be in for a real treat. Listen below.

For more Strike Anywhere, we recently wrote about their cover of Dag Nasty’s “Values Here” in a list of 20 great covers of classic punk songs by ’90s/’00s punk bands.