Play the part
A little Former Clarity fun fact is that I've written so many dispatches you'll never get to read. Between my last post and this one, I have three finished pieces sitting in the drafts folder, all withering.
I tell you this because lately, I've been asked if I'm still writing. I don't take offense to the question, it's actually quite flattering, but I think it's more a commentary on the fact that I don't publish much here. And when I do, I barely promote it. Dan and I talk about this somewhat often on No Disrespect, a podcast where we mostly maintain a weekly cadence, but there are so many things I could have done to boost my profile that I just can't bring myself to bother with. Aside from a quick post on a couple social platforms, that's the end of the promotional cycle for each Former Clarity post. I should be tagging the artists I write about, posting throughout the week, doing some kind of video on Reels or TikTok, but that's just not me. I respect the folks who have adapted to our modern media landscape but I grew up reading Cometbus and now I'm destined to a life on the margins. Maybe my next post will be completely handwritten.
Back to those unpublished pieces, I'm actually quite proud of them; especially the last one. But as I've aged, I've felt significantly less inclined to air out certain things for the world to see. Instead, the practice of writing has returned to what it was when I was a kid: a means of processing. It's as much an artistic pursuit as it is a chance to really dig in and figure out how I feel about a given situation, and sometimes those things lay stagnant in drafts and Google docs. I'm kind of like Prince in that way, squirreling away completed works that aren't for public consumption between trips to the tailor for upgrades to my ass-less jumpsuits.
Anyhow, this one's going to take a slightly different form than what I've done recently. I feel the need to shift things around and try out a new format. Maybe I'll return to the standard album recaps in the future, but I'm feeling a different approach this time. I hope you like it.
Before we get to all of that, though, I want to direct you to my friend and bandmate Nick's Discogs store. Last week, he found out one of his cats, who is only a year old, has feline leukemia. The costs of testing, surgery, and ongoing medications to give his cat the best possible life have been heavy, and he's parting with a good chunk of his record collection to pay the compounding vet bills. If you see anything in his store, I encourage you to buy it and know it's going to a good cause.
On with the show!
Old Obsessions: 2000s Hardcore
When I first got into hardcore in the early 2000s, I remember thinking to myself that I wasn't that far removed from the genre's bedrock releases of the 1980s. Even as a teenager, 20 years didn't feel like an insane gulf to me. Minor Threat's music was a couple of decades old but it still felt relevant, even contemporary, to my ears. It didn't hurt that there were bands actively playing in that style that made me feel like this all existed on one continuum, an ever-expanding universe sparked from the same big bang event. But now, I'm realizing that most of those records that I was listening to back in 2006 are now 20 years old, too. I don't know what that means exactly, but I do know it makes me feel weird.
That said, the records are still so fucking good. Let's start with No Moderation by Government Warning, I remember getting their debut 7-inch No Way Out on a lark when ordering something from Interpunk (probably a Crass shirt). For those not in the know, Interpunk was one of the biggest mailorder sites for most of the 2000s and early 2010s. I learned recently that the site shutdown last year after it's founder Bob Schermerhorn died. I also know that the site took a precipitous downturn in quality, becoming more of a scam than a distro by the end. For a while though, it was a great way for a kid in Indiana to get Nausea back patches delivered to his door in just six-to-eight weeks time.
Anyway, back to Government Warning. The No Way Out E.P. was a fast favorite, and when I heard that a full-length was coming, I anticipated it like few other records that year. Hearing No Moderation the first time, I was blown away. Opening with the title track, one of the best hardcore songs of the 2000s, is such a flex. I can't say for certain, but I think I've had the song's simple chorus, "No moderation! No, no, no!" pop into my head once a week for 20 years now.
The drummer for Government Warning was Brandon Ferrell, who played in a ton of great bands and, crucially, ran No Way Records and was the owner of Richmond, Virginia's best record store, Vinyl Conflict, before passing it to Bobby Egger. Brandon also played on another album I was obsessed with back then: Career Suicide's Attempted Suicide. Both of these records are drastically improved by Brandon's drumming, which was able to feel frenzied and ferocious without ever feeling sloppy. The songs on both these albums are some of the best hardcore punk—or what I was still calling "modern hardcore punk" until a couple weeks—because they are unhinged yet still melodic. In the way that early hardcore had choruses you wanted to grab the mic and sing along with, these records understood you could sound frantic while still having hooks, and it's why these albums still sound fresh today.
This detour led to me pulling releases that weren't exactly contemporary, but felt part of that broader world. Out Cold's Will Attack If Provoked was an early favorite that I hadn't heard in a while, and I forgot how bad that snare drum sounds. Actually, I doubt I was even aware of it back then, but I am now. Though I favor their '90s material, Out Cold was an entry point into the non-metallic side of Boston hardcore, an introduction for which I remain forever indebted. This led be back to Double Negative, who never had a bad release, but whose 2010 album Daydreamnation (I'm glad there's one good album with this title) felt like a logical end-point for this scene. By the 2010s, many bands in this world had begun to slow down their activities or break up entirely. Daydreamnation was still hardcore in approach, but it took a more expansive, experimental approach to the genre, especially in the guitar playing. I don't remember this record getting the love the first Double Negative LP did, which is a bit of a shame. Even now, you can find most Double Negative releases in the discount bins at your local record store, which I would say is a bummer, but hopefully it just means people are having their minds blown on the cheap.
What's New?
I don't want to say it's been a fallow period for death metal but it's certainly felt that way or me. As modern hardcore has embraced death metal, I've found that people have just created a new version of deathcore that isn't as bad as what existed in the 2000s, but it's still not something I want to hear. Thank god for Funebrarum's Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence to finally show people how this music should be done.
Given everything I just said, it's funny that this band was started by Daryl Kahan of Citizens Arrest, Born Against, and other hardcore greats, but he doesn't tend to mash genres together as much as excel at the ones he chooses to operate within. After a protracted wait, with 10 years between Funebrarum releases, and Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence having been recorded all the way back in 2019 (!), this release is well worth the wait. My one knock on it is that at 50 minutes, it's a lot of pummeling to sit through in one go, but the quality is there, from start to finish.
Similarly, Japan's Pharmacist returned with Vertebrae After Vertebrae. Pharmacist's four-year gap between releases is paltry compared to the decade between Funebrarum albums, but consider this: Between 2020 and 2022 Pharmacist put out a dozen releases. A dozen! Twelve! That was two full-lengths, two EPs, and a whole bevy of splits and singles. That's an absurd level of production. It's why, after they went dormant for a couple of years, I just assumed the project met its logical end. After all, though the band is billed as a duo, I've long suspected it's actually just one guy who gave his drum machine a name and did everything himself. I figured, after a dozen releases, he'd done enough Carcass worship—though, to be frank, I think it was actually more Pathologist worship—and decided to give the project a rest. Hearing Vertebrae After Vertebrae, he picks right back up where he left off, turning in a handful of grisly, grimy grind songs that fall somewhere between Symphonies of Sickness and Grinding Opus Of Forensic Medical Problems. If you're into this kind of thing, you can do far, far worse than Pharmacist.
On a similar grinding note, let's talk about Fake Dust's Decrepitizing Din Of The Cerebral Psyopticon. Do I know what that title means? No! Do I care to learn? Also no! Learning is for stupid people! And grindcore is for extremely stupid people like me. Fake Dust is truly something to behold here, in that I can barely understand how humans play this music. In particular, the drumming is operating on a level where I can only marvel at it. For this, and so many other reasons, Fake Dust is getting plenty of attention. The album is fully sold out from Iron Lung Records, and the amount of clips I've seen from their current U.S. tour in my Instagram feed means people are definitely showing up to take in this sonic assault first hand. How far can the hype train take them? I guess we'll find out.
Speaking of hype, Nedgravd's Ascension has been posted about endlessly on metal forums because this band of Norwegian teenagers have made a genuine cult-sounding death metal album in the year of our lord, 2026. Given the general evilness of it all, Infester is a clear reference point but I hear some demo-era Morbid Angel in there and even some Autopsy in the slow parts. It's charmingly lo-fi, like a '90s demo that's gotten a fresh mastering job and got tossed on a random Bandcamp page. Nedgravd is the talk of the town, and not just because of the band picture they used at the start, where one of the band members had their dick hanging out for some reason. Kids these days.
Shifting down a gear, I want to talk about an album that's not out until the end of June but that you can hear a couple songs from already: Consensus Madness' Endeavors. Following a demo and a 7-inch, Consensus Madness' debut album is a perfect slice of jittery first-wave punk. I've gotten to see Consensus Madness play a bunch over the years—and recently played with them, alongside Rotary Club and Cel Ray—and they've only gotten better with time. The batch of songs on this record are tightly wound, melodic, and bring in just the right amount of post-punk to give it all a wiry, skittering feel. If you're looking for a summertime punk record, Endeavors is the first one you should reach for this year.
Let's shift down one more gear to get even softer and talk about Death Cab For Cutie. I count We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes as one of the 2000s greatest indie-rock albums, and I've remained a Death Cab fan even as they've turned out material that elicited little more than a shrug and a half-hearted, "Eh, it's fine." But 2022's Asphalt Meadows roped me back in, and their latest one, I Built You a Tower, is their best since their 2000s hot streak. Ben Gibbard's voice hasn't aged, and he's still capable of making the mundane feel mournful. But the secret weapon of Death Cab has always been bassist Nicholas Harmer. His playing on "Punching the Flowers" and "How Heavenly a State" brings in a post-hardcore churn that the band often danced up against, and hearing these moments on display here shows they've got as much range as ever.
What've you been watching?
On the flight back from Dan and Kayleigh's wedding (congrats again, friends!) I finally took the plunge and watched Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. After going to see The Boss with my pal Josh Terry, of No Expectations newsletter fame, I was on a bit of a Boss kick, and it felt like if I ever was primed to receive this movie's brand of schlock, it was in that moment. What I'll say is this: the movie works in flashes. There's certainly a lot of standard-issue biopic shit on display here, but there are moments that transcend it. I think they brought in too many subplots when they should have just gone all-in on a depressed dude making a dark, depressed record, but instead they added in a love story and some black-and-white flashbacks to ensure everyone really got the point. In a film where they're having Jeremy Allen White—who, despite my doubts, did very well here—sulk around and talk about the importance of pure artistic expression, they should have taken their own advice. It definitely seems like some studio meddling was at play, but it also could have been far worse than it actually was. If you're on a plane, give it a go.
On a similar note, I went to a screening of Field of Dreams at the Music Box, a movie I watched endlessly on VHS as a kid and probably hadn't seen in at least 15 years. While I recalled the bulk of the film's beats, what struck me the most was the fact this really is a film about following your dreams. Yes, I know it's right there in the title but I'm just not very smart! As a kid, I recalled the more fantastical elements—the baseball guys in the corn; the voice whispering to Kevin Costner; seeing that the guy who voiced Darth Vader was a real person—but being the age that Costner's Ray Kinsella is in the film, I was genuinely moved. There are many great choices made throughout, and Amy Madigan puts on a hell of a performance, so I was left reminded that sometimes the classics carry that reputation for a completely valid reason. Though, I must admit, every time they said the Kinsella surname I was completely distracted. In my head, I was writing a sequel. A washed-up punk guy moves to Iowa and bulldozes his corn to build a perfect replica of the 2003 Fireside Bowl. Late one night, he looks outside to see Tim and Mike Kinsella emerging from the corn. Davey von Bohlen comes out, adjusting his Milwaukee Brewers hat, and then, by god, it's the rest of Cap'n Jazz! They run through a shambolic version of A-Ha's "Take On Me" while cars sit in miles-long traffic hoping to get a glimpse of this magical moment. Hollywood execs, you can send me an email any time you'd like.
Whatcha reading?
It's one of my greatest embarrassments in life that I'm not more well-read. I've tried my best to remedy that in recent years, but I remain ashamed all the same. Anyhow, I've read a lot of great stuff this year, like Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and Don Carpenter's Hard Rain Falling, books I've though about regularly since completing them. Then I started in on Dennis Cooper's The Sluts, a book that left a permanent stain on my psyche.
I'm not one that's usually shaken up by extreme fare; I can usually stomach most anything. The Sluts was one of the most visceral reading experiences of my life. A particular section was so intense that I had to put the book down mid-sentence and return to it days later. When I did come back to it, I thought I'd be able to handle it. I only had two pages left and then I'd be past this offending section and, nope. With each sentence the stakes escalated and my stomach churned. I felt bile wafting up the back of my throat. I was squirming on the couch. I white-knuckled my way through it and, whew, what a time.
What I'll say is this: I think The Sluts was a fantastic read, and one that I'm sure would have hit incredibly hard if I read it in the mid-2000s, with much of the book's form reflecting the world of then-budding internet, but I don't know if I'll ever read it again. Dennis Cooper's work is renowned for this kind of thing, and The Sluts has certainly made me interested to read more of it, but I think I'll have to take a similar approach to jumping in a pool: wait an hour after eating, just to be safe.
I'll be back in a couple of weeks with a kind of thing I've never published here before. It's not an interview or a profile or anything like what you just read. It's something I feel very proud to have done, so we'll see what you all think when the time comes.