A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Great Confrontation 2LP by Chip Kinman. I confess that I had forgotten about The Dils until the opportunity to review the band’s Live! reissue came up. Not that I was unfamiliar with the band before (I remember discovering the band at the same time I came upon The Weirdos, The Bags, The Dickies and Fear in high school), they just sort of escaped my memory until the band’s Live! album got...
The funny thing about punk and hardcore bands has always seemed to be that, no matter how caustic they may have sounded when listeners first began paying attention, the desire to get louder/harder/more aggressive as soon as MORE people begin listening to them is nearly immediate. A perfect example of this tradition can be found in the recorded output of Vancouver’s rising stars NEEDS; upon first appearing with their self-titled album in 2015, the band shattered expectations by delivering a...