Australia has never had a shortage of killer hardcore.
Enter Melbourne’s Endless Bore.
Ensuring that golden run continues, the deceptively monikered band formed in late 2018 and has since scattered a grip of rad releases in the form of long players, an EP and killer split with Sydney’s Numbskull.
Endless Bore’s latest LP, Drive Not Detected, recently dropped courtesy of the raddest of label triads in Grindhead, Noise Merchants, and Innercity Uprising Records, respectively. Collectively teaming up to cover the tape/vinyl/cassette release, the physical format is a brief but stacked eleven tracks.
Clocking in just north of 15 minutes, it’s a furious blur that merges fastcore, early aughts thrash, and straight up, burly hardcore that leans into moments of power violence’s firebrand fury.
Much like their fellow home country crushers Extortion, Cut Sick, and others; Endless Bore boast a unique sound. At first blush, it’s the recording quality that caught me off guard. While not crystalline, it’s a beefed up and stellar production without sacrificing a sense of rawness and decidedly punk ethos. As I’m prone to fawning over bass tone, Endless Bore have nailed it, peddling a fuzzy, thick, and impossibly low-slung sound.
Opener, “Notifiable Incident,” is as good an entry as any. Much like the electrodes jolting our not so lucky album cover protagonist, they inject the listener from the jump.
After an oddball sample, the track quickly devolves into a mangled melange of extremity, nodding at everything from the bandanna-clad thrash attack of What Happens Next? and the straightforward hardcore of Spine. The band also manages to capture the no frills attack of Infest or Siege, albeit with an updated full sound.
I don’t need smother this with superlatives when dishing on the vocals. I’ll leave it at this… they fucking rule. Imposing, bellicose, and absolutely unhinged, it’s the element that pushes the band into their power violence/grind bag of tricks. When they employ halftime tempos, the ensuing blast beats are fleeting but are a rush at the halfway point.
My personal favorite track “Little Giant” is a late album rager that ratchets everything up considerably. Though just shy of a half minute, it careens violently and recklessly in one of the year’s most exhilarating musical moments. Its sonic bedfellow “Senseless Violence” is another bite sized example of their battery.
Elsewhere, the band flaunts their refined savagery on classically informed crushers like “Notifiable Incident.” Having covered both Negative Approach and Void on the essential To Live A Lie Records Sincere Flattery comps, Endless Bore is perhaps at the center of that very Venn diagram. Flexing their considerable muscles in both the pugilistic stomp of the former and the “off the rails” blitz of the latter, these Melbourne mawlers straddle it well.
I’d imagine the band has been told that “Endless Bore is anything but…” Pardon me while I search for something more clever. Instead, I’ll bid 2022 adieu with this absolutely perfect slab of the nasty stuff.
Get It
- Grindhead Records (Vinyl)
- Innercity Uprising (CD)
- Noise Merchant Records (Cassette)
Tagged: endless bore
