The Locust's 'New Erections' repressed on ltd opaque red vinyl (pre-order here)
Chaotic hardcore vets The Locust have been in the process of doing some limited vinyl reissues of their classic records, and now they’re giving the same treatment to 2007’s New Erections for its 15th anniversary. We’ve teamed with the band on an exclusive “ancestor incest red” (opaque red) variant, limited to 300 copies. Pre-order yours while they last. That’s a mock-up above.
New Erections was The Locust’s third album and remains their most recent studio release, but they’ve been talking about new music since 2019. Still no concrete word on that, but bassist/co-vocalist Justin Pearson has been busy with a lot of other stuff, including the new Deaf Club EP that arrives next month.
The Locust are also playing Austin festival Oblivion Access, which BrooklynVegan is co-sponsoring and throwing a showcase at.
Get the new “ancestor incest red” vinyl variant of The Locust’s New Erections here. Stream the album below.
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25 Chaotic Hardcore 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.