Init Records is one of the most underappreciated record labels releasing music today. Documenting some of the Midwest's most important punk bands, from The Spirit of Versailles to The Vidablue, the label is consistently on point. I know Steven Init through the great invention of Internet message boards, and the guy is an absolute stand up person. So it still comes as a surprise to me as to why this label doesn't get the respect it deserves. With their latest release, Building Better Bombs' Freak Out Squares, the label continues to quietly put out quality releases.
Freak Out Squares is the Minneapolis-based band's debut album, following a two year hiatus and 7" release after the band returned in 2005. Building Better Bombs formerly played as a two-piece, but reemerged later with four members, three of which play in hip-hop groups, including rapper P.0.S. The band hasn't fully ditched their hip-hop influences, but rather has turned their attention to hardcore, and their different influences have led to a very interesting and rather catchy result.
The album opens up with "This is a Gang," a blistering thirty second song that opens with a fast four count and ends in straight screamed chaos. The band continues to develop their songs, as they reach their stride with "No Hospitals," a song that sees the band ditching their full out screams and quick guitars and drums for melody and choruses. Mixing sassy screamed vocals with a melodic chorus, the band sings:
We lit this match to prove there's air to breath / It's easy to forget when suffocation seems so constant / We lit this fuse to prove we're tired out of holding our breath.
The rest of the album features much of the same, as Building Better Bombs seamlessly mixes all out yelps and screams with catchy hooks and choruses. The Blood Brothers first came to mind, if The Blood Brothers were faster, harder, catchier, less annoying, and well, not The Blood Brothers.
Besides being one of the catchiest hardcore (or screamo, if you approve of such a word) bands I have ever heard, the band is instrumentally on point as well. Building Better Bombs is instrumentally as catchy as their vocals, matching the choruses with an indie flare while still being able to produce caustic and maniacal music during times of chaos. Their hip-hop influences are not forgotten either, as the band uses hip-hop beats and turntable scratches during different points, although never in excess or at the wrong time.
Freak Out Squares is one of the more unknown gems of this year, as the band has created genre bending music without compromising their hardcore sound. Init Records has certainly done it again, releasing another strong record from an unlikely source. Hopefully now people will begin to catch on.
