Review / 200 Words Or Less
Down to Nothing / 50 Lions
Split

6131 (2008) Michael

Down to Nothing / 50 Lions – Split cover artwork
Down to Nothing / 50 Lions – Split — 6131, 2008

Richmond meets Melbourne on this split effort. Down to Nothing follows up last year's The Most while 50 Lions follows up an Australian-released full-length of their own. This split features each band contributing three new tracks.

Down to Nothing picks things up right where The Most left off. The band's sound has gotten significantly less punk-oriented and more straightforward and aggressive over the years. "Watered Down" is a pounding two-minutes of sing-along opportunities galore. "Shot Down" and "When My World Turns Cold" are short and to the point, but equally as gnarly.

50 Lions sets things off with the Boston-styled jam "The Realness" - think Guns Up!. "Searching" and "Love and War" are more of this flavor - big breakdowns and lots of gang vocals. While this is my first exposure to them, I've heard a ton of these kinds of bands from this country. Not really my thing, but I'm sure down under kids go bananas.

7.0 / 10Michael • August 3, 2008

Down to Nothing / 50 Lions – Split cover artwork
Down to Nothing / 50 Lions – Split — 6131, 2008

Recently-posted album reviews

Tyler Sonnichsen

The Dead Milkmen
J-Card Press (2026)

When I saw The Dead Milkmen at Toronto’s Diamond Club back in the late 1980s, the floor was a volatile, beautiful mess of colliding subcultures. It was like different species of house flies bumping into one another, wondering what the hell you were doing in the mason jar. You had suburban high school pocket-pen-protector pencil-neck nubile nerds, college radio snobs … Read more

Opus Kink

The Sweet Goodbye
So Recordings (2026)

ALBUM HIGHLIGHTS – “Come Over, Do Me Wrong”, “The Sweet Goodbye”, “I Have to Shine My Sunday Shoes”, “Crucify!” Opus Kink sound like nobody else. To call them “jazz punk” is to massively oversimplify it. In fact, there’s not much traditionally “punk” about them. If anything, it’s “noise rock”, but with traces of almost every other genre you could name. … Read more

Sludgeworth

Second Time Around
Red Scare Industries (2026)

I never got very into Screeching Weasel and the extended family tree. Ignoring the politics of the matter, the music never really hit that sweet spot for me either. But Sludgeworth were an exception. The band released just one album, that I discovered at least 10years after its release, but seemingly disappeared -- only to resurface after a 2022 reissue … Read more