Alive Inside’s new 7″ “The Only Way Out” has a different cover color for every partner label pressing it. The Vienna hardcore crew put the record out March 26 as a joint release between eight labels scattered across Europe and Asia, with their own fresh imprint Vienna Crew Records running point.
The current lineup — Roman, Luis, Oliver, Chris, Flo — pulls from a long list of Vienna bands past and present: GoldenX, Influence, Make A Change, OnXPoint, Make My Day, Permanent Style, In The Cage.
Five tracks, under ten minutes, FFO Floorpunch, Mindset, Sportswear.
Their last 7″, “A Promise,” came out last year on Germany’s Passion Means Struggle Records. This one doubles as the launch of their own label.
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Vienna Crew Records exists because, as Luis explains, there’s a gap in the city nobody else was filling: “Vienna has a booming diy hc scene with sick shows, motivated bands and people but it misses diy labels that put out vinyl for local bands. we have leechpit that puts out tapes, hc4lzs who does a great job in everything and a lot of mostly international releases. But we think there is a gap that we try to fill in the future with vienna crew records.”
The band calls this one a starting point, a way to test the water. With no distribution network of their own yet, they asked around. Drummer Roman knows a lot of people, and the yes rate surprised them.
The vinyl pressing ended up being a joint release of Vienna Crew Records (Austria), Passion Means Struggle Records (Germany, still their home label after “A Promise”), WTF Records (Netherlands), Spook Records (Poland), Dedication Records (Germany), and Noise To Help Records (Germany) — every partner getting its own cover color.
Spain’s Smiling Is Not A Crime Records, longtime friends of the band, handled an exclusive free digital prerelease a month before the vinyl hit. XThinkPositiveX Records is pressing a CD version for Asia. The only hole in the map is a US partner.
“All in all we are very happy with this unityeffort and it was more work than expected but great experiencing different people who share the same core values work together just for the cause of it, and so far everything worked really well (only the pressing plant had a 2 month delay)”
Recording was just as much of a group project. Philipp Horehled — Fips — tracked the EP at Earthquake Factory in summer 2025; he’s an old friend and former bandmate of Roman’s. Charles Chaussinand mastered it, another old friend of the band.
The guest and crew vocals pull from across Vienna hardcore and its orbit: Miso (Hc4lzs / Influence), Nico (Lesson Life), Sandro (Dice Throw), Oliver (Perfect Sky), Liz (Leechpit / Scuffle), Luxi and Mike (Make A Change), Thomas, Markus (m0lephoto), plus Joe D. Foster of Unity and Ignite.
The unity theme that shaped the production runs straight into the songs. Luis broke each one down.
“Not Today / This Means Everything” — the opener. Luis says it’s about what hardcore can be if you believe in the spirit of it: “The music the energy the community can give us the power to build something positive and let us forget ‘the pain’ the outsideworld often inflicts. Everyones familiar when you put on your favourite songs or your favourite records you enter a world of its own, its like meditation, freeing your head. Like you cannot feel ‘the pain’, whatever the pain is, in that moment. and this breather can help manage difficult situations in life better.”
The track closes on the creed “This Means Everything To Me,” and Luis wants no ambiguity about it: “you can be assured everyone who shouted ‘This Means Everything To Me’ also means it.”
“Walls” — the most political song on the record.
Luis: “with the classic theme of fighting, or in this case running through, the walls the system or the society creates. especially in times like these it is important to keep on speaking up against oppression and segregation. like in the classic great dictator speech that we put in the midpart, we have to stand up against national (or cultural) barriers, hatred, intolerance,… one world one people. our point of view is hc should always stand for freedom and on the side of the oppressed and for equality!”
“No Gamble No Future” — Luis flags this one as the most fun song on the record and doesn’t pretend the Floorpunch worship is a coincidence: “the Floorpunchvibes are very intentional ;)” The message is as short as the runtime — don’t be afraid to take calculated risks.
“Realize” — “real eyes realize real lies.”
“The Only Way Out” — the closer loops back to the opener.
Luis: “same way we opened the record we close it, with the main message and an homage to hc. that hc, the music, the community is more than entertainement or art, it is ‘the only way out’ of the craziness of the world (at least for some of us), with some inspirational guestvocals.”
Cover photo by Aljoscha Farassat. Live, band and crew photos by Markus (m0lephoto.com). Design and layout by Roman. Find the band at @wearealiveinside on Instagram and facebook.com/aliveinsidehc.
Catch the band live at their upcoming shows in Germany:
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