Spine/The Repos – split 7” – Bad Teeth Recordings

Yeah, you know Spine, that band with the singer that looks like Meat from Porky’s.  That band that had you stripped down to your underwear, shadow moshing in your bedroom to “Subhuman”.  Well, they’re back with five songs on this monster split out on Bad Teeth Recordings.  Spine’s hardcore formula, while individually nothing you haven’t heard before, when combined in all its parts, is truly second to none.  It’s like some guys got together and took what they loved from early Boston hardcore, late 80’s youth crew, mixed with the aggression of early 90’s powerviolence and stripped it all down to create their own hair-lipped Lisa from Weird Science.  They kick it off with a brilliantly simple intro which transitions into this metal-ish whammy guitar sound, before rushing in and dropping you on your head with a mosh out right into song two; all in 23 seconds.  That’s the formula.  At first you wonder if their Carry On-like licks can hold such a violent vocal, but the condensed song times make it work masterfully.  “On The Loose” is a perfect example, and my favorite track on their side, with a 25 second mostly bass and drum intro on a 46 second song, that explodes into Antonio’s angry stepdad vocals for 5 seconds and then breaks down into mosh part heaven, just to wind it back up and drop it again on the way out; brilliant. The Spine side finishes strong with a hard hitting cover of “The Kids Don’t Care” from The Repos.   

You realize this split is like Rick Rude passing the baton to the Ultimate Warrior in a 20 yard dash when Midwest underground legends, The Repos, pick up where Spine left off.   The Repos bring more of a punk feel with their 80s inspired, reckless style of hardcore.  “Pigs Acts”…HOLY SHIT! Song of the split for me.  They come in with no regard for anything, sounding like Ray Cappo’s bigger and back hairier older brother vocally and then unleashing the “ARRRRRAAARRRGOUHHHH!” right into the mosh part.  Instant classic.  I’ve looped it for the last 20 minutes and peer out the window to make sure my car isn’t being towed every time it starts.  The rest of their side is fast, in your face, zero fucks given, The Repos sound that everyone needs in their life.  They finish off with a near perfect cover of Spine’s classic “Release”.

This split is a fantastic pairing of bands.  You have the sauce drenched spare rib slab of Spine and the reckless tear it up spirit of The Repos.  Both recordings are top notch and the packaging from Bad Teeth Recordings (props for putting the RPMs on all your labels) is flawless.  At the risk of going full cliché homer as this is a Midwest split with Spine having ties to KC, this is my favorite split this year, up there with the Ultra//Negative/Ira Graves split.  This is a must own.