Chaotic hardcore pioneers Hayworth reissue 'License to Bill'
Hayworth were a short-lived 2000s band who released just two full-lengths, a 7″, and an EP, but whose brief career inspired much of the chaotic hardcore that’s been coming out these past few years — we included their 2009 album INPYFAD (I Now Pronounce You Fucked and Depressed) in our list of 25 seminal albums from the 2000s that paved the way for today’s chaotic hc, mathcore, and sasscore bands. With the renewed interest in this kind of stuff, the band are now in the process of reissuing their records, with Wax Vessel handling the full-lengths and Zegema Beach Records taking care of the 7″ and EP. ZBR reissued the 7″ earlier this year, and today they’ve reissued the License To Bill EP. Here’s what ZBR’s Dave Norman says about it:
Hayworth were a band that did some amazing things and quickly receded into presumed obscurity. With the Myspace revival both Zegema Beach and Wax Vessel hit up the band about releases, with the two full lengths going to Wax Vessel and the 7″ and demo EP going to Zegema Beach. One of the reasons there was no vinyl for said demo ‘License To Bill’ is because masters were lost and only MP3s remained. We had the very talented Joni Elfers (@Curry Lands) do some declipping/remastering of said MP3s into what you can listen to today, and they sound both awesome and improved. We made 260 cassettes across some very cool swirl variants, including 50 random swirls that we painted over a few years, as well as rose gold swirls, and the very cool “Hayworth Halfsies” swirls. If you aren’t already acquainted with the chaotic ridiculousness that was Hayworth, please watch this truly timeless live video of them playing in their living room when they were wee teens. Most of this material is on the ‘License To Bill’ demo, and ZBR still has some 7″s of the ‘Don’t worry about it? I’m not worrying about it + Industrial Park demo’ EP available.
Pick up physical releases for License to Bill here and the 7″ here and stream both below.
Related: ZBR also reissued Loftus’ Hugs and Drugs this week.
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25 Chaotic Hardcore, Mathcore & Sasscore Albums from the 2000s That Are Seminal Today
Black Cat #13 – I Blast Off! (2000)
The Sawtooth Grin – Cuddlemonster (2001)
Racebannon – In the Grips of the Light (2002)
The Blood Brothers – March On Electric Children (2002)
Orchid – Orchid (aka “Gatefold”) (2002)
Since By Man – We Sing the Body Electric (2003)
"We sing the body electric/Sickness says hold on/Would you like to dance, dance, dance?"
That's how Since By Man open "A Kid Who Tells on Another Kid is a Dead Kid" (probably an Over the Edge reference but not a Nation of Ulysses cover), with Sam Macon raising his voice to a harsh shriek on "dance, dance, dance" and totally embodying flamboyant hardcore in the process. That line also gives this Milwaukee band's Revelation-released debut LP its title, and -- for a subgenre that prides itself on shamelessly verbose poetry -- it makes sense that a band would name their album after a Whitman poem. Throughout We Sing the Body Electric, Since By Man deliver a shapeshifting soundscape that bounces between melodic math riffs, clean-sung hooks, and bludgeoning metalcore, sounding like a cross between The Blood Brothers, Botch, and Poison The Well (who Since By Man guitarist Brad Clifford later joined). It's often a fast, frenzied, constantly-in-motion record, but it sets itself apart from dime-a-dozen mathcore with a few atmospheric, slow-burning songs that veer closer to Jupiter-era Cave In. I don't know if this particular album is a big influence on the current punk scene or not, but it sure sounds like it could be; it combines a lot of different sounds that have been coming to prominence in recent years. Some parts of this album sound like early 2000s post-hardcore in a nutshell, but other times it feels genuinely ahead of its time.