The Worst
5. Better Than A Thousand “Just One” (1997)
Ray Cappo returns to his youth crew roots! Ken Olden from Damnation A.D. and Battery plays guitar! This is gonna be the greatest supergroup since Chickenfoot! (look it up) 1997 was a transitional year for hardcore and a rough one for Ray Cappo. His Krishna-core band Shelter had released their fourth-wave ska album “Beyond Planet Earth” (also look that up) and in the same year, he put out this posi-‘88 revival cringefest. This comes across like him doing bad karaoke of Youth of Today while cosplaying as himself.
Play it again: “Live Today” Because when Ray Cappo says “today” it almost sounds like you are listening to Youth of Today!
Skip it: Looking up Chickenfoot
4. Mike Judge & Old Smoke “Sights” (1993)
A decade before Tim Barry and Chuck Ragan would make hardcore-frontman-turned-acoustic-guitar-wielding-boxcar-hopper into a viable genre, Mike Ferraro aka Mike Judge put out “Sights” and bewildered the hardcore world. Fans were not feeling the Neil Young-esque lamentations with more sour notes than a corked chardonnay that’s been left at room temperature for too long. Editor’s note: (Writer’s edge status has been revoked). And many were left wanting Ferraro to return with more Judge which, according to a recent article in a highly-respected and definitely financially profitable music publication, was one of the best releases that Revelation put out.
Play it again: We guess one of those Tim Barry or Chuck Ragan albums? No, fuck it – listen to Avail and Hot Water Music and Judge
Skip it: Anything that sounds like the soundtrack to an indie movie about an alcoholic hobo
3. Iceburn “Hephaestus” (1993)
Here’s the thing, if you were to have seen Iceburn play live there were actually some interesting things happening and we don’t just mean the kickboxers in the crowd trying to figure out what the fuck they were watching. They had some solid, off-time riffage, and in a live setting, it wasn’t bad. Unfortunately, their recorded output just never really reflected this. It certainly doesn’t help that the production on this album sounds like if you had a fever dream brought on by an ear infection while someone off in the distance called out the name of Bloodlet songs.
Play it again: There’s a moment somewhere in the eighteenth or nineteenth song that all have the same name which was cool but we can’t remember exactly where it was so please don’t ask us to find it again.
Skip it: Songs 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28
2. The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower “Love In The Fascist Brothel” (2005)
This album starts off with the previously mentioned Gorilla Biscuits trumpet intro and it comes across like a petulant, passive-aggressive statement. “Yeah, take THAT, Record Label Daddy! It’s 2005 and we’re subverting expectations!” Once you get past the borrowed intro you realize this band is as impossible to listen to as their name is long. There came a point in the early oughts when the “can you BELIEVE how ka-razy we are!” style of mathcore reached its point of diminishing returns (yeah, that’s a math pun) and we’re going to guess this album isn’t getting a lot of nostalgia these days.
Play it again: The opening moments when you think “Start Today” is playing
Skip it: Literally every other second
1. Christiansen “Stylish Nihilists” (2003)
In 2003, this off-brand At The Drive-In put out this one idiot-shiver-inducing album with its douchey cover art and then disappeared (presumably up their own assholes). Actually, we’re not entirely sure if they did anything after this and at this point in this list we’re just too tired from listening to garbage and don’t have the energy to even Google this band. But we are pretty sure though they were probably one of those 900 bands you had to sit through at a Warped Tour on a 102-degree day on some dusty pile of trash in the hopes of seeing Green Day play something off “Kerplunk.”
Play it again: Anything by At The Drive-In and most of The Mars Volta
Skip it: Suggesting you write an article where you have to listen to terrible music
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