Looking at Mark McCoy's cover art for City Hunter's brand-new LP, Deep Blood, I'm reminded of all the hours I hung out in VHS rental stores during my misspent youth searching for bad/great exploitation action and horror flicks. The image of the masked marauder holding a hunting knife in the middle of an urban landscape is the stuff Enzo G. Castellari nightmares are made of.
Listening to the record, the sound might not bring to mind the synthed-out scores from those aforementioned '80s films, but the overall sense of tension and fear screams through the Denver band's aural assault.
City Hunter specialize in a specific rash of hardcore that can best be described as ugly in its harsh delivery, sandpaper-kissed guitar/bass/vocal tones, and murderous subject matter. Mixed and mastered by the omnipresent Will Killingsworth (Concealed Blade, Bib), Deep Blood manages to capture both the brutality and creeped-out atmospherics of the group's sound.
While the entire LP is a certified ripper™, I'm focusing on "Crimson Streets" today since I can't seem to get enough of its main riff/verse section. It's got a certain power violence meets NYHC vibe to it that drilled its way into my skull from the very first listen. Yes, strangely, "Crimson Streets" is—dare I say—catchy. As much as I'm loving the track, I suggest you dig into the rest of Deep Blood as soon as you can.
I don't know how many copies of Deep Blood are left (Youth Attack always do things in extremely limited runs), but you can check for yourself here.
Tagged: city hunter, youth attack
