Structures

If there‘s one thing I love more about hardcore than the actual music, it‘s the friends I‘ve made along the way. And I’m always down to support my friends in their creative endeavours. It helps obviously if I like their creative output as well. I’ve said before that if someone showed me a description of Cranial as a band, I’d probably not be into them. “Doom”, “post-metal” and “four songs in 40 minutes” are usually not buzz words and phrases that trigger my interest. But since I’m very good friends with two of the band members, I went to a bunch of their shows over the years and was never disappointed. So when they told me they were planning a release show for their latest release, I was down for it, of course. My wife and I made a day trip out of it and after dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in the city Cranial has its home base in, we got to see them perform their new songs off of Strucutes, which turned out to be really, really good.

Unfortunately, the records weren’t ready for the actual record release, but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes. Then again, one of my friends hand-delivered the record to me when we hung out, so I’m definitely not complaining. Love your friends. 

1st Press on Coke Bottle Clear on Moment of Collapse /300

Bane & Bane

Just when I thought I was making some good progress with all those Bane represses, a new round of represses of It All Comes Down To This was announced, four variants in total. The two I got so far look pretty good, although I feel like the Candy Cane variant might have been a better choice for Give Blood. But it also works with this record I guess. 

2026 Repress on Red & White Candy Cane on Equal Vision /500

The glitter variant looks pretty awesome truth be told. I’m just confused about the ‘natural’ part in the label’s description. I don’t know what makes this glitter acutally ‘natural’, but I don’t know what ‘unnatural’ glitter would be either. 

2026 Repress on Natural Glitter on Equal Vision /300

Feels Like Heaven

This might be an early contender for Record of the Year. Feels Like Heaven / Scheme Records cleverly released Within Dreams on January 1, 2026. Of course, the way things go with current releases, it took me a while until I actually got a copy, but hey, it was well worth the wait. If you like current bands like Drug Church or Fiddlehead and/or late 80s Dichord stuff, you won‘t get disappointed. This is really, really good. 

Unknowingly, the Band Scores major bonus points with the cover. When I was a kid, I had a few records with fairy tales and modern classic children stories that I listened to a bunch. The one outlier record I had was a radio play based on true events, detailing the first ascent of Nanga Parbat, one of the highest mountains in the world. The radio play was much more dramatic than any other records I had, but I loved it. The cover featured a similar image to the one on the cover of Within Dreams, and now I sort of want to listen to that radio play again. 

1st Press on Black on Scheme /328

The Last Shall Be First

The advantage of finding out late about a band’s release is that you don’t have to wait as long for the next one, so I was pretty happy to learn that Chopping Block have a new record. Nowhere To Run hasn’t grabbed me quite the same way from the get go Seattle’s Hardcore did, but it’s still a really good record.  

1st Press on Black on Indecision /300