A new feature: CD of the Week

Every week, I will now be featuring a CD that I recommend all you people out there check out! First off it's H20's first cd in like 8 years, "Nothing to Prove." True hardcore heavyweights, they could sometimes be called pop punk, sometimes positive hardcore, sometimes melodic hardcore, but regardless of their genre placement, one thing is for certain: This CD is some of the most well-written, passionate hardcore I have heard all year. It cries out questions that have been eating me for years, especially pertaining to the current state of the "hardcore" and "punk" scene in America:

"What happened to the passion? What happened to the reason for screaming? What happened the music and the message that I love?"

The whole record is solid through and through, and is significantly more angry and hardcore than some of their more "recent" releases. Guest vocals from Lou of Sick of it All, the singer of Madball, and Agnostic Front should be enough to attract any fan of the genre, if not the fact that this band has never forgotten their roots.

There are intermittent clips of a lot of different people talking on this, but especially amusing is the kid on the record who says things like: "H20 GO!" "I'm straightedge for life you suckers!" And my personal favorite: "My Dad has too many tattoos!" Overall the record is, if anything, over too quickly.

My Rating: 8.5/10

Link: http://www.myspace.com/h2ofamily

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Please feel free to give any feedback on these entries! (and all of them, for that matter) I'm also always looking for new bands to listen to, so I'll gladly take recommendations. Expect something more Japanese next week, although I will be trying my best not to limit myself to one specific genre or locality.

A really big update on this crazy weekend coming by tomorrow at the latest, and with lots of pictures! Thanks for reading everyone, it gives me motivation to keep writing!