Blunt Force came together when their guitarist clocked their future vocalist’s No Time shirt at a Spectral Voice show and the two of them stayed talking for the rest of the gig. A couple projects after that never got off the ground. The break came when locals Petty Theft broke up and they could pull in their guitarist Miles, who brought his best friend Owen on bass. Drummer Chip closed the lineup.
The Philadelphia band’s first demo is now up on streaming, with a cassette pressing coming through Manic Mantra.
The five names involved come from across the map. Vocalist Cole previously sang in Denver’s Raw Breed, Catholic Girls, and Candy Apple. Guitarist Ben played in Pittsburgh’s Settle for Nothing and Philly’s Cycle of Abuse. Miles and Owen both come from Philly’s Bankrupt, with Miles also having played in Petty Theft. Chip continues to drum for Lehigh Valley’s Skiives, Controller, and Better Think Twice.
The ages span a decade, 26 to 36, and the listening histories spread out from there. The eldest member started catching hardcore shows in Denver at Sox Place around 2003 or 2004. Owen, born in 2000, didn’t start going until 2019. Ben got into the Pittsburgh circuit in 2011 at Mr. Roboto Project, back when dark hardcore and powerviolence ruled the bills, and the bands he watched there (Converge, Weekend Nachos, Coke Bust, Full of Hell, Heartless) shaped his taste in fast, chaotic, aggressive hardcore.
Miles speaks for himself on the writing side. “In terms of influences, it’s difficult to pick just a select few because my opinion is constantly changing as I find new music (to me) across a variety of different genres. I think it’s important not to be grounded and to be open to other genres to keep creativity at peak level. In terms of hardcore/metal it’s a bit easier for me to break down influences. When writing guitar parts for Blunt Force I really wanted to ramp up the intensity level and make the songs relatively short and chaotic. Bands like I Hate You, Extortion, Let Down, Panic are all bands that tickle my fancy and ultimately encourage me to write the songs you hear in Blunt Force. I’m a huge fan of powerviolence and fast hardcore, so don’t expect the trend you’re hearing to stop anytime soon.”
That sums up the demo. Five songs of short, fast, metallic hardcore sitting under a coat of cassette grime in the recording. Production runs on the dirtier side, but the songs are wound tight enough that the propulsion still comes through, and the two-step sections do most of the heavy lifting. It rewards endurance more than patience. You can already picture this band landing harder on a future release once the recording catches up to the songs.
The opening track plants a stake against scene tourism. Its lyrics push back on culture-vulture and dilettante tendencies and call for the kind of immersion that actually serves a purpose. The second song circles a line Cole says he’s heard floating around left circles: history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. The writing pushes against circular thought and against people stuck inside the cultural norms they should be tearing down.
“Euphoric Trip is about fighting against apathy and doing everything you can for everyone you can,” Cole says. “I get irritated by the punk hardcore scene’s tendency to focus on the symptoms of capitalism rather than the system itself and falling into right-wing thought. Everything is political, to be apolitical is fencewalking bullshit.”
“Juggernaut” takes a left turn from there. In Cole’s words, it’s about “a huge strong monster that crushes shit with a mallet.” The same figure appears on the demo cover. “Chatterbox” closes the demo on a more personal note. “It’s about how I feel presenting myself to the world,” Cole says. “I was told to keep making music for no one, and I intend on doing that as long as people let me. I wanted to present a song free of any highfalutin words and not hide behind any intellectualism.”
Continued below…
The cassette home was decided early. Manic Mantra is Cole’s own imprint on Convulse Records, co-run with Tristan (The Consequence, Candy Apple, Direct Threat) and Ed.
Cole pushed for the demo to land there before anything else got sorted, and the band weren’t open to other pitches. “We also would not settle for any label other than the best cassette-only hardcore punk label,” they say. There’s even a song titled Manic Mantra written for the demo and then pulled to hold for a future release.
On where they fit in Philadelphia right now: “Right now Philadelphia’s got some really bad ass fucking bands, but not a lot of places to play. I’d list the few spots but I don’t really wanna blow them up, ask a punk you know?” The bands they say they’re closest to and feel the most kinship with: Demonstrate, The Damage, Brainwashed, Raskol, The Big Hurt.
Credits: recording by Lukas Hill, mix and master by Will Killingsworth, demo cover by Tim Savage, metal logo by Preston Weippert, live photos by Emily Barkin at the band’s Cinco de Mayo show in New Brunswick, NJ.
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