XXX: Some Ideas Are Poisonous
Ebullition Records
1995 CD A mid-1990s straight edge hardcore compilation. Far from "jock" hardcore, this is on Ebullition Records, and everything on here is in the DIY emocore sphere (or adjacent to it). But, were there enough bands of this specific niche to assemble a viable collection? Well...
Some thoughts:
- Portraits of Past and Frail have the two best tracks here. Tight, emotive, excellent compositions and production.
- Policy of 3 and Groundwork are also great, though needlessly preachy and both these tracks could do without the samples.
- Monster X is apparently one of the few straight edge grindcore bands, and their contribution (the comp's opener) is an absolute ripper.
- Endeavor I had never heard of, and was surprised to hear a straight-up chuggy metalcore track. Not bad.
- Plenty of awkward vocals on this, as can be the case with this style of mid-tempo hardcore. Shatter the Myth has some of the worst hardcore vocals I've ever heard; the fact that they're in French does not help.
- Two tracks I'd consider legitimately awful. The song by Via is an eight-minute slog, and slotting it right after Monster X was a terrible aesthetic choice. There's also a band called Pogrom who just sounds weird as hell, with their contribution being some sort of narrative poem set to music with unintelligible pitch shifted vocals (apparently this was a one-man band who later self-released a thrash album wtf).
- The CD version of XXX is actually packaged the same as the vinyl version (the disc itself is in a clear sleeve inside the record jacket). The album comes with a poster, a couple stickers, and a zine style booklet with one page dedicated to each band. The Ebullition guy also includes a screed about how being "edge" makes him feel alienated from polite society but he's still gonna do it because... he just is okay!!
Kind of a mess overall. I'm certainly overrating this in the most literal sense, but it's a cool piece of history and the highlights are indeed terrific.
Rating: 3/5
Reviewed: 03/17/26
What Is Crust? What Is Melo-Core? Be Different Hardcore?
Vinyl Japan
1998 CD Not sure why I own this. As in, I have no idea how it ended up in my collection.
I also have NO idea what the hell the title is supposed to mean, but yeah, this is Japanese. It's an hour-long collection of 90s Japanese punk and crust tracks. This type of music is really hit-or-miss for me (mostly miss) and what do you know, most of this is terrible. Just noisy fuzzy DIY bad on purpose basement show punk with no memorable hooks or melodies. The best track comes from Disclose, famous Discharge rip-off D-beat band, though "best" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I looked up some of these other bands on Discogs and RateYourMusic and they have no credits outside of this compilation lmao.
Released exclusively on CD, on a label called "Vinyl Japan" -- which was based out of London. There's a picture of Hitler in the CD booklet.
Rating: 1.5/5
Reviewed: 11/16/25