Western Addiction - Cognicide

Simply put, Western Addiction is straight-ahead, no-fucking-nonsense hardcore. Not tight, girl jeans-wearing hardcore; not Champion hoodie-clad militant straight-edge hardcore. They're what Black Flag might be like if they had formed in 2005, and with the seminal LA-hardcore legends as a blueprint for its sound, Cognicide hits with as much intensity as Henry Rollins could have ever mustered. The San Francisco quartet, who all happen to be Fat Wreck Chord employees, found enough spare time to put together a brutally honest (and sonically brutal, too) throwback to the better, more pure days of hardcore. Don't get me wrong, though--listening to Cognicide is as important in the present as much as it would have been 25 years ago. Throughout the record, Western Addiction proves to rise above much of the dumbed-downed, machismo that's so overbearingly present in the scene. In between assaults on the political and cultural climate and more personal issues, singer/guitarist Jason Hall comes across as more literate and thoughtful than most of his counterparts, putting the group into a league of hardcore intellectuals with labelmates Strike Anywhere and Good Riddance. For music with balls and no bullshit, Cognicide is the best I've heard all year. Fervent, musically unrelenting, and truly smart, lyrically, Western Addiction brings the past into the present with extreme ease, and have constructed what I wish could be used as a building block for the all-too-often uninteresting and narrow-minded state of hardcore. [www.fatwreck.com]