Entry the 16th: Strife - One Truth

Strife's first full length, One Truth, was a fine record, but unfortunately it suffered from not being In This Defiance. Too bad for this record, because it really was pretty good, and if I had gotten it before In This Defiance I would have listened to it a lot. Alas this was not the case, and so whenever I felt like listening to Strife, it was rare that this found its way to my CD player.

I still feel this way about One Truth but I think that might not be entirely fair. If this record had the same production as its successor then I might be singing a different Strife tune. Some of the songs on In This Defiance were older songs, and they are probably my favorites, so what if?

Check out: Arms of the Few

Entry the 15th: Judge - Bringin' It Down

Another addition inspired by the Jocelyn Tape, this time the song was New York Crew. Fast and angry, with lots of gang vocals, this seems like the sort of thing that I would have been all over. There was something about it though that just kept it from being one of my favorites. So many of the other records I had were already filling the roles that this one might have, and while that didn't keep it out of the player, or keep the songs off of my own tapes, it never really got the kind of play that those other records did. That and when it came down to Boston vs. New York, at least in my collection, Slapshot won hands down in my mind.

Now listening to Mike Ferraro's lyrics I just laugh at the guy. The tough guy stuff doesn't appeal any more, and listening to a fat guy sing about a fight he got into once with some guys from Boston or how they wore construction gloves? What a loser. That being said, I still like this as long as I don't listen to the words too carefully, or remember that there are better hardcore bands near at hand.

Check out: New York Crew

Entry the 14th: Strife - In This Defiance

We come to Christmas 1997 with this entry, back when my family wasn't too fed up trying to find me records I like. Strife was one of the bands from Victory Style that I actually really liked, and it took me nearly a year to pick something up by them. Well Merry Christmas to me, this ended up being one of my favorite albums then.

This is good stuff, as I'm currently on my fourth listen. This is one of those albums where each song that comes on I think it's my favorite. With most of them I'm wrong, since my favorite is Force Of Change, but it's a close race. I suspect that I'd not be alone in that choice either.

Check out: Force Of Change

Entry the 13th: Earth Crisis - Firestorm

Here is what really started it all for me. The song that first truly piqued my interest and directed me down the road to the realm of aggressive music was Firestorm. Long before picking up the actual Firestorm EP I had the song, coupled as it was with Forged In The Flames, on the Victory Style compilation. Those two songs make up half of this EP, the other half being Unseen Holocaust and Eden's Demise. Unseen Holocaust was really the only other good song on here, and that is why it took me so long to get the real thing.

I rarely listen to this nowadays, but in spite of that fact, the song Firestorm is still probably my most listened to song of all time. For anyone who had actually heard this song, that might sound a little strange. It's a pretty dull song by any standards but whatever standards I had when I was fifteen. I still love this though, and I consider the first time I heard this song as one of the most important milestones of my life to date. It was that big a deal.

Check out: Firestorm/Forged In The Flames

Entry the 12th: Integrity - Seasons In The Size Of Days

More Integrity! I was hard pressed to decide whether I liked this better than Humanity Is The Devil but who cares? Dark and menacing hardcore, with all kinds of heretical imagery? Yes please. This was also perfect listening for the time of year I got it, late in the year as the days were fast approaching their darkest, and everything around was bleak and grey. Two years later I named my cat after singer Dwid.

Today it's not so bleak out there, but you wouldn't know it from the sounds coming from my speakers. A song about sarin nerve gas is delightful, and Millennial Reign almost sounds like something that Deathspell Omega would put out today. Integrity was and remains one of my favorite hardcore bands, or rather favorite bands in any genre.

Check out: Millennial Reign

Entry the 11th: Sick Of It All - Live In A World Full of Hate

Sometime in the fall of 1997, I picked up this album at The Cellar. I don't think I knew it was a live album when I bought it, but the disappointment didn't last because it turned out that this was exciting to listen to in the same way as The California Takeover. In particular the opening barrage of Injustice System, It's Clobberin' Time, and Violent Generation all without pause gave the impression of an extremely intense live show. I'd still never been to a hardcore show, or really any concert for that matter, so this was still as close as I could get to the action.

It's still fun to listen to, but since I've been to countless shows at this point it's not the same as it was then. Still, I'd go see them if they turned up in Toronto, and since they're still around, you never know.

Check out: Injustice System

Entry the 10th: Path of Resistence - Who Dares... Wins

Take Earth Crisis, and add a couple of singers, make it a little simpler and faster, and make all the songs about straightedge stuff and you have this spinoff project. I loved this to be sure. It had all the militancy and rage of Earth Crisis, but it was faster and more aggressive, and the cover with mysterious straightedge goons all over it was very appealing.

Four years ago, these guys re-formed and released a second album, and listening to this now, I don't know why I didn't pick it up. This rules!

Check out: Broken Heroes

Entry the 9th: One King Down: Bloodlust Revenge

More vegan straightedge metallic hardcore. More Hate Than Fear was another Jocelyn Tape hit, and it could be found on this One King Down EP. Unfortunately, the tracks on my iPod for this are corrupt, so sadly I wasn't able to listen to it properly, but a little poking around the internet allowed me to sample some of it here and there.

This was the closest thing to Earth Crisis that I had found up to this point. The lyrics were similarly eloquent, and certainly on the same subject matter, and the music was that same sort of no-frills, slowed down Slayer/Metallica riffs. They were probably my second favorite band, at least for a bit.

Listening to this again today, it doesn't have the staying power that most of these previous records have had. I rarely ever listen to this as evidenced by the fact that I only just discovered that the songs don't actually play on my iPod.

Entry the 8th: Slapshot - 16 Valve Hate

On the Jocelyn Tape there was also a song called Big Mouth Strikes Again, which I found on this album by Boston's Slapshot. The rest of this album sounded very different from the song that inspired its acquisition, and for a very good reason. Big Mouth Strikes Again is actually by The Smiths. Who knew? In any case, I loved this fast, pissed-off hardcore. Their straightedge hollering wasn't really militant like that of Earth Crisis. It was perhaps more honest in a sense. Just straight ahead angry.

Nowadays, this still gets some love. I don't feel like I can relate to the anger any more, but back then I didn't realize they were covering The Smiths, so I'm guessing they might have been a little less angry than I realized. Front to back this is a great hardcore album.

Check out: Big Mouth Strikes Again

Entry the 7th: Sick Of It All: Scratch the Surface

Some time previous to getting this record, my good friend Jocelyn made me a mix tape. I believe it was about 90 minutes long and filled with a bunch of hardcore bands. I listened to the tape a lot along with these records and tapes I had made for myself, and I liked some of the bands enough to buy their records too.

So I finally got something that wasn't on Victory Records, and I finally got something that was really actually more like hardcore than metal, a distinction I was less aware of at the time. Just before my Grade 10 school year I picked this up, again at the Music City in Polo Park.

The song Step Down was the on the tape Joce made me, and in listening to it again I still quite like it. I actually like a lot of the other songs quite a bit more than I remember liking them at the time. Lou Koller still sounds a little like he's retarded, like so many other hardcore singers, but that's not a complaint, and I still remember most of the words that he sings in that garbley tard-yell.

Check out: Step Down

Entry the 6th: Integrity - Humanity Is The Devil

I bought this the same day as "Gomorrah's Season Ends" at the Music City in Polo Park. It probably would have been June-ish 1997. Another album that I was led to by the Victory Style compilation, this would be the first album I ever got that made me feel a little uneasy. I didn't really know what to make of all the Process Church stuff, but I'm glad the internet was useless back then because this album would have lost all of its mystique.

Integrity is probably the only band that I was listening to in the infancy of my music-geekdom that didn't disappoint me within a year or two. They still haven't disappointed. This band, and this EP remain favorites to this day. "Vocal Test" is a great party-starter.

Check out: Abraxas Annihilation