Empowerment Meets Abfukk

Part 3 of the split series that Empowerment is doing. This time they teamed up with Abfukk, who play fast, pissed off hardcore PUNK. Who would have guessed with that kind of name, right? Once again you get one brand new song by each band plus one cover song of a German punk classic. With me, it's either total hit with Empowerment or total miss. There's no middle ground apparently. This is sadly a miss. Maybe it'll grow on me, but I have my doubts. The Abfukk side is pretty good.

More Empowerment To You

This is the second part of the split series Empowerment is doing. This time they teamed up with their recent tour buddies AYS. Both bands play one of their own songs, plus a cover song of a band from their region, which is the whole concept behind this split series. I don't care too much for the new Empowerment song to be honest, mainly because of the guest vocals. Kind of ruins it for me. The cover is well done, but musically it's just not my cup of tea. The same goes for AYS. I think I saw them live once when they opened for some band I actually wanted to see and I vaguely recall wishing their set to be over quickly. I got the same feeling when I listened to their side of this split 7" for the first time. They just don't strike a chord with me.

I hope the next split will be better again seeing that I did like the first 7". Clear vinyl out of 262.



I ordered another record from the label's distro section. Damage Control were a band from Oslo, Norway and were around during the mid and late '00 years. If you're into bands like Champion, Go It Alone, Carry On and the like, you should give them a listen. I really like this 7" and I'll definitely pick up their other releases in the nearby future. This is the least rare version on black vinyl out 1,860.

Empowerment

Sometimes I buy records simply to support bands that I think are worthy of support without being 100% convinced of the music. Empowerment from Stuttgart falls under this category. I've seen them live a couple of times and all of the shows were a lot of fun. Great live band. Plus, this is a band that has something to say and actually mean it, which sadly is not a given anymore in the hardcore scene. Empowerment play NYHC (and nothing else!) better than most of the OG NYHC bands I know. Their attitude on the other hand is rather punk, especially compared with classic NYHC, which has a tendency towards conservatism, patriotism and a lot of other '-isms' I think have no place in hardcore/punk. I rarely hear of bands from that niche of hardcore or hardcore in general that outspoken against patriotism, anti-immigration initiatives, homophobia or the use of the word "retarded/behindert". I don't like their overly stated localism, which is also true for most hardcore bands, but there are still a lot of good reasons to support this band in my book. Now, as far as the music is concerned, there are some really good songs on this LP, but it isn't that great a LP. I know that a lot of people will probably disagree with this statement, since Empowerment are huge in Germany right now.

The artwork is pretty unique, since it features a wheel system which allows you to change the cover, right where the woman stands in the open door. There are four different pictures and four different text messages. Nice gimmick. Cobra Records didn't skimp on the cover.

In the next few weeks, Empowerment is going to do a split series with four other German bands. The first split 7" has already been released, and besides Empowerment it features Hamburg based band Krank. Musically speaking, these bands are on the opposite ends of the hardcore/punk spectrum. NYHC vs. classic punk sound. Good songs by both bands, although I favor Empowerment a little bit. Then again it's really hard to compare these bands since they play such different styles.