Flush it Friday: I’m Itty. You’re Bitty. Let’s Ditty.
As per the statutes of our committee.
Y’all even readin’ these things? I can’t tell.
Low Before the Breeze – A Hole Beneath the Home We Shared
Terminus Hate City | May 30, 2025
Back in March, Eenzy described Hate City’s own Low Before the Breeze as “chaotic-blackened-poweremoviolencecore.” Though expressed inelegantly, it’s not entirely wrong. The band joins and jams together harsh noise, black metal, and skramz at times hyphenated and not. Styles and emotions are enjambed, running through line breaks with fearless creativity. Call it post-syntactic. Here’s a crazy thought: tracks like “Loss of a Kingdom” and “Days Feel Rehearsed” sound like if Mastodon was on Level Plane Records. “I had a dream where I was dying, and you wouldn’t meet my eyes.” Unrequited love makes secondary characters of us all. Despairingly so.
Sutras – The Crisis of Existence
Tomb Tree | April 16, 205
Hayley Williams said recently that Turnstile was “her Fugazi.” For D.C. duo Sutras, Fugazi is their Fugazi. Take that old DC sound, shake it up with Self Defense Family, Modern Life is War, and Make Do and Mend, and you’ve got something like the suffering here at hand. A judicious amount of gang vocals lets you know we’re all in this together, a reality that plenty of folks would have you reject. Songs like “Welcome, Kingdom Kids” might just become your next anthem, your next mantra, your steadfast mooring. But: “the trouble is / you think you have some time.”
Gang Busters – Demo / The Boot Flexi
Independent | February and May 2025
Lockin Out-inspired hardcore from Screwston, Texas. Some Jaguarz are going on a Rampage in Crunch Time so you better Stop and Think or better yet Look Alive before you end up on The Wrong Side Of the Grave. There’s barely even 10 minutes of creepy-crawlin’ sprawled across the two releases, so buff and shine those dancin’ shoes and hit the pit with your stankiest skank and funkiest two-step before you miss your chance. “Just ‘cause you hang around doesn’t mean you belong.” Sometimes I think hardcore should only be demos with this recording quality and including covers of hometown heroes.
Synth for Pets – Symphonies for Walks / Lovely Night in the Woods
Fiadh | May 30, 2025
Originally released via antifascist Brazilian label Violent Synth Order, these two albums are now as one on a cassette the colour of magnolia leaves. I keep thinking about Lydia Millet’s 2008 novel How the Dead Dream. You watch as T.’s meticulously constructed life collapses around him, leading him to start breaking into zoos to share space with the imprisoned critters before he dies in a jungle next to something. “So an animal had come to him, in the end. He was lucky: he recognized this again and again, as though each time was the first recognition.” We need companionship, y’all.
Athletics – What Makes You Think This Is How It All Ends?
Deep Elm | May 30, 2025
Along with the announcement of a new one from Moving Mountains, What Makes You…?—the band’s first LP since 2012—marks 2025 as a big year for huge crybabies. Choked up, blanketed in goosebumps, eyes welling, lips trembling. Soar and twinkle, twinkle and soar. “May your anchor hold weight. May your heart… may it never break. But Christ I hope it hurts. Like hell. Christ, I hope it hurts.” When I listen to this while driving, I don’t care about traffic. When I listen in my apartment, I don’t care it’s so hot. Life is so rich. We’re so lucky.
Go Flush Yourself!
Stick is so good at TMP, y’all. Roldy‘s equally good at TTT. You think this shit is easy?
Mclusky is back and so is Aaron with 4 flaming toilets.
Stevo gave us a fun and thoughtful Fortress reportress.
Fortress Festival 2025 Report: My overall experience of the weekend
Toilet Radio 564 is about “hardcore.” Joe n Jordan are lucky they didn’t invite me to join. It would’ve lasted 4 hours. Join the Patreon for the unedited version.
Look. I‘m not happy the new Turnstile is bad, but these things happen!
Like a sky ghost who won’t leave that village alone, Stevo takes up the Hexvessel and asks, “Hey, what gives?”
A suitcase cover is a kind of shirt, if you think about it. Everyone loves a Shirt Stains from 365!
Damn fine week around here. Make sure to tend to all the contributors and their contributions. Cast your GBUs into the comments like pennies in a wishing well. Who knows what may happen!
