Hell fucking yes! I write this from a place of Hardcore Punk Bliss. I write this from the point of view of blasting So Cal underground music for the past four decades! I write this as a California native who knows that under the palm trees and beautiful sunsets lies the underbelly of our state, and it’s not all sweet. I feel honored to share with y’all the new NEGATIVE BLAST record Echo Planet which comes out on Feb.10th via Quiet Panic (pre-order HERE!). If I could go back in time, I know for a fact that this band could hold their own. Imagine this lineup: Black Flag, Negative Blast, Necros, Aggression, and Ill Repute at the Cathy De Grande — I know for a fact that me and my homies would rip the ceiling down and slam our asses off to the sounds of all of these bands!
Real Talk, NEGATIVE BLAST has one foot in the past while the other foot kicks the listener’s head into the present and the future at the same time! What makes this band so awesome and so fucking quintessential of a California Hardcore band is the way they weave their anger and rage into aggressive melodic outbursts that are more than songs, they are fucking anthems!!! Blast their song “Trauma Bond” and tell me that it’s not all that and then some. Honestly, this band’s music has the power to heal, because their songs act as a release for all of my inner anguish. From a musical tip, they are next level and bleed passion with every riff and drum beat! NEGATIVE BLAST has something to say and y’all better fucking listen. I suggest y’all press play on their song “Carbon Copy,” close your eyes, and reflect on how sick this band is! Vocally, I dig how gnarly the singer is and how they deliver every word from a place of honesty! I could talk about every song but I want y’all to experience them for yourself. I will say this, if I had to rate this album from 1 to 10, NEGATIVE BLAST Echo Planet is an 11. This feature was written from a place of love for California Hardcore — now it’s your job to press play below and then lose your shit!!
Echo Planet was a wholly collaborative process spanning one year, from writing to recording, mixing, and mastering. We originally planned to work with an outside producer, but ultimately produced it ourselves. We would show up to practice weekly at Sunsick, Alex’s recording studio, and flesh out riff ideas, song structures, and drum parts. Alex would set up a room mic and we would just go at it while playing through ideas that we would pool into our “Riff Library” on Google Drive. I would listen to the songs repeatedly in my car, at home, or at my studio and flesh out lyrics and cadencing.
Raineir Pesebre
Certain songs had themes in mind, for example “The King in Vancouver,” which was a tribute to Alex’s friend’s dog passing. We ended up using some working titles of songs as actual song titles, such as “Bad Trip,” which had lyrics I wrote while sick with Covid, feverish and hallucinating for weeks. When we had a considerable amount of songs to work with, we set a week aside for pre production in which we mapped out tempos and fleshed out song details even more. Principal tracking took place over a few weeks in August and September 2021 in between each of our loaded work schedules. I would record vocals in several chunks of two to four songs each session over a period of a few weeks after the instrumental sessions were complete.
Thematically, Echo Planet is a sonic exhalation of coming to terms with the isolation and insanity of this imperfect world. At the time, many things were escalating out of control on a global and national scale that inevitably trickled into our own personal challenges and defeats. The band has always been an avenue to not only push ourselves to make fun music that we enjoy playing, but to provide a respite for processing the difficult things that seem to whizz by in the doldrums of daily life. San Diego is a beautiful place to live, but there are nooks and crannies that even the sun cannot reach. I try to access these corners and air out the dust for my own sake, and it seems that there are others out there who can scream the same song.
Upcoming shows:
Feb 9 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah w/ Unsane, Deaf Club
