The Kill Van Kull - Human Bomb

Label: Handi-Kraft
Year: 1998

This is a really good one. I've been meaning to post it for years, but it took me forever to get around to digitizing, and then when I did, I fucked up the tracks, so I did it again and that time I fucked up the levels, and then...you know.
So if this sounds "off" in any way, let me know and in a few years I'll fix it and repost it. Ok? Deal?

This band served as a bridge between New York City's post hardcore world of frenetic grooving heaviness and the city's noise rock world. It's got the intensity and raw power of a band who came up in hardcore, but the scratchy, off-kilter attack of a band who gets uncomfortable playing it straight. So, like, a big fan of Burn playing Drive Like Jehu covers. Right?

The closest comparison sonically would be to JJ Paradise Players Club, which not coincidentally, James Paradise plays drums in The Kill Van Kull. Guitarist Cooper was also in JJ Paradise Players Club, just to add to it. But, the point being, a lot of what The Kill Van Kull was doing; mixing some post hardcore, a little emo (and you know what I mean, the Hoover style), and some straight to the throat hardcore bluster, JJ Paradise Players Club would amplify and make heavier a couple years later.

The personnel that made this record are all top tier dudes, no slouches. You got former and future members of (the aforementioned) JJ Paradise Players Club, Hell No, Citizen's Arrest, The Brought Low, Pigs, Animal Crackers, Manacled, Fresh Kills, Made Out Of Babies, Die 116, and something I'm forgetting. I'll remember it in a minute.

Sweet Diesel! That was it.

File this under "Lost Classics". Essential.

DL