The Store: Smash! Records

I‰’m going to be a little bold here and say if you live in DC and haven’t found yourself at Smash Records yet, you are doing it wrong, and I will personally volunteer to drive you there to prove it. Back in my days as a lonely freshman with no friends and no responsibilities, I had a little too much time on my hands and would wander around DC looking for records. My first stop was Crooked Beat since, ya know, that’s the first one everyone tells you to go to, but no one tells you that, if you’re like me, once you walk down the street to Smash you’ll never have enough money left to stop at Crooked Beat.

The Finds

Eddie Brock – Brand New Day

I‰’m not sure, but I wanna say I’ve seen Eddie Brock at some point, but again maybe I‰’m remembering a long forgotten facebook event I once saw and considered attending. Either way, despite hearing good things, I never actually got around to listening to them… until today. I vaguely remember when they broke up and everyone threw a fit about it, but that still didn’t get me to open bandcamp and give them a chance. I‰’ll say now that that was a dumb decision because this band rules. It‰’s fast, angry, loud hardcore with the A389 (always a good sign) – seal of approval.

Death First – Untitled?

Have you ever looked at an album cover and had an immediate and overwhelming feeling that this band just understands you on some cosmic emotional level? In case you understand that sentiment, I congratulate you for being as strange as I. If you have never experienced that, allow me to use this exact 7‰” as an example, since this entire experiment is me judging albums by their badly printed inkjet covers, anything with images relating to anything I kind of like. 

This front cover conveniently sported a photo of a back cat on a black background, almost immediately solidifying it as one of my pick-ups. Flipping the record to its back cover only further convinced me that this band had somehow already infiltrated my brain before I even got out of the store. The back cover was simple and featured images of the band as well as track names. The band member images featured an angry looking woman, obviously a reflection of my life, and a song titled “Spread Thin,” a feeling I’ve been increasingly feeling as midterms quickly approach.

Needless to say, this album is everything I needed while trying to start research for an 8 page paper due in less than 48 hours.

Life Trap – Bleak Reality EP

Life Trap just sounds like an ignorant hardcore band so this choice was really easy to make. It was between this or a weird ’90s-looking movie soundtrack single and I‰’m glad I choose this one. This band is from Tennessee and not to be confused with the Brazilian band of the same name. The back cover has an image of the White House with an atomic bomb explosion photocopied on top. Cheesy political cut and paste always equals quality hardcore and this 7‰” is no exception.

Verdict:

Great finds from a store that never fails to remind me that punk life is the life for me.