Isotope
photo by Carlos Garcia

stream Isotope's ripping s/t debut LP

Isotope hail from the Bay Area and feature former members of a handful of established Bay Area punk bands (and a couple Boston bands), but with Isotope, they’ve embraced a shared love of Japanese hardcore, and they actually played their first show in 2014 opening for Japanese hardcore band Forward. They also have a shared love of Swedish crust punk, as evidenced by the Anti Cimex cover on their 2017 EP Wake Up Screaming.

The band — vocalist Chuck “Zone Tripper” Franco (Midnight Brain, Crimson Scarlet), guitarist Nick “Sikki Nikki” Cantu (Stormcrow, Sanctum, Detonize, Xeroxide, Fernacoffin), guitarist Kristen “KP” Payne (Red Thread, Pink Nightmare), bassist Paul “Bazzy” Capito (Crimson Scarlet), and drummer Clint “Clza” Baechle (Stormcrow, Acts of Sedition, ANS) — are now gearing up to release their debut full-length album, which is self-titled, this Friday (4/5) via Carbonized Records, the new label from Necrot drummer Chad Gailey. Across these eight, whiplash-inducing songs, you can hear the aforementioned Japanese hardcore and Swedish crust influences (plus a heaping dose of d-beat and some fiery metallic guitar solos), and Isotope are masters at this kind of stuff. If you like hardcore of any variety, it’s nearly impossible to deny this LP. It’s not a massive reinvention of the genre or anything, they just do it right. Listen to the whole thing below, and if you like what you hear, pre-order it (physical or digital).

Isotope