Flush It Friday: “Am I Ungrateful for Wanting More?”
“Even when I have so much?”
Back on Edge Day 2025, Chicago’s Stomach released To the Positive Youth, 8 covers of classic straight edge anthems. Moving through Youth of Today, No For An Answer, Judge, Gorilla Biscuits, Turning Point, Champion, and Side By Side, the Chicago duo plays all the hits in a blown-out, bass-engorged way. The speed of tracks like “You Laugh” lends itself perfectly to the band’s penchant for powerviolence. It’s the rumbling, tom-rolling and bass-led two-step passages, though, that shine on this compilation. “In My Way” sounds fucking hard, as does “Breaking Free,” but that’s always been true. Long live Youth Crew.
Blood For Blood, absolute legends of the Boston hardcore scene, released a new single for the first time in two decades this week. I was pretty young when I first heard their white trash scumbaggery, and I have a distinct memory of hearing their cover of The Wretched One’s “Goin’ Down the Bar” and thinking, “Shit, maybe being straight edge isn’t that cool.” Though Spit My Last Breath is still my favourite, I’ve been hammering Outlaw Anthems this week. Some of it has aged poorly, but much has all the power and honesty you remember. Long live the Wasted Youth.
Last year, Squint’s Big Hand got top-billing on Hans’s year-end list. Just in time for this year’s list season, Squint returns with an EP that still has plenty of pop punk heart but is pushing the hardcore envelope a bit more explicitly. “Green Grass” and “Empty Tank” have infectious, hooky melodies, while “Overslept” has the most ’90s guitar lead imaginable. Standout “Shaken from Anger” opens with some serious Piebald clapping while recalling smiley-faced Quicksand. Brennan Wilkinson’s vocal delivery keeps reminding me of Suicide File. I keep thinking, too, of a mid-paced One Step Closer. This is all feeling, emotion, energy.
We might as well keep the EP train rolling with Love Songs from Big Boy, released last month via DAZE. Hailing from the Bay Area and featuring members from Sunami, Spinebreaker, and Eightfold Path, Big Boy plays that Real Bay Shit. “Mystify” opens with all the tenacity of Cruel Hand and Cold World, mixing pit-clearing breakdowns and fade-out hip-hop samples. “365” and “Now?” are as likely to sound like NYHC/NJHC as they are Speed. Continuing to pay homage to that side of the country, the band ends with a pitch-perfect cover of Life of Agony’s “Other Side of the River.”
On their latest EP im not strong enough for this, skramz superheroes lagrimas have ripped open their chests and let the world in all its fullness and dinginess touch their hearts. I’m thinking of a Jamaica Kincaid essay, in which she confronts England as the descendant of slaves in Antigua: “The space between the idea of something and its reality is always wide and deep and dark. The longer they are kept apart—Idea of thing, reality of thing—the wider the width, the deeper the depth, the thicker and darker the darkness.” May lagrimas and Kincaid illuminate our worlds.
No, you aren’t. SO LET’S FLUSH.
Stick drops a heavy TMP, while Roldy matches it with TTT.
Metal-Aged Mom has the goods in DEI, Volume 7.
Logan Alan joins us to share photos from a recent Wretched Blessing/Glorious Depravity show played in the great city of Chicago whose football still sucks.
Live Photos: Wretched Blessing and Glorious Depravity – Sleeping Village, Chicago (11/17/2025)
Toilet Radio 596 features some of Joe n Jordan‘s favourite tracks of the year. Shake your moneymaker to ’em!
The first hit of Listmania is upon us! Look upon the lists of Brock and V. Grimace and despair, ye mighty.
Listmania is back with Stevo and Aaron!
That’s the glorious week in the Bowl! My softball got mercy-ruled 20-3 last night. But we drank more beers and had more fun. So who’s the real winner? Drop your GBUs in the comments. Have a lovely weekend. Hugs and kisses.
