Bridge 9 are onto a winner with this one. Now, I’m not especially young, but I’m too young to remember Underdog and it’s been nothing more than a name uttered by HC stalwarts. But now the band have reformed 2 decades after splitting up, this is a re-release of their 80s material (tracks span 1985-88) and it does read like a piece of history.
26 tracks of more melodic NYC hardcore, you be sure this lot influenced RKL and Pennywise as much as their influenced Refused. It’s relatively dark stuff (standout example being ‘Friends Like Them’) played with some serious musical ability too. At times it’s not a million miles from some of the more intense stuff the Descendents were putting out at roughly the same time, all sung with words crammed in as quickly as anything 7Seconds could do.
I know it’s pretty fashionable right now to stick out re-releases of hardcore stuff that sometimes has lost its meaning over the last couple of decades, but this compilation sounds remarkably fresh. There’s the odd duff track (and a couple of tracks doubled up from different sessions that seem a little unnecessary), but when this record is good (take, for example, the metal-esque ‘Back To Back’) it’s very, very good. Well worth a bit of pretentious investigation.
Mike