Necros "Club House Session"

 

(Alona's Dream, 2015) This is one of my favorite releases form the last few years, not because it's the best, but because it is perfectly not the best, because the best classic American hardcore was always supposed to seem like you were seeing your friends band and they were better than you expected, if not exactly professional. Hardcore was mostly actual little ass kids going the fuck off, and probably the best thing about this is this is that it sounds exactly like little ass kids going the fuck off, with Barry trying to sound menacing with tough guy affectations expressed with Dennis the Menace's vocal cords. That said, as Brian and Corey make extremely clear here, the other thing that great American hardcore was is music that can, by design, be delivered extremely powerfully and perfectly by little ass kids attacking their instruments (not to leave the drummer Todd out of this, but the cassette 4 track they recorded this on pretty much took care of that, but you can tell he is holding up his end). Covering Sham 69 with fury and conviction as if they were in a Cockney pub rather than a friend's rec room is a powerful whippet huff of perfect punk rock fantasy.