Incendiary / Suburban Scum
Split [7-inch] (2010)
Brian Shultz
Incendiary follow their impressive 2009 full-length Crusade, with a couple of splits this year, the first of which is from fellow heavy band Suburban Scum.
It feels redundant calling anything Incendiary does by this point "enraged," but it just seems to hold true for this pair of tracks. Brendan Garone spits his words so furiously on "God's Country", it's almost got a hip-hop/hardcore crossover feel–at least without the usual corniness that plagues the style. A simply mean, heavy riff chugs to open the song before it busts into a tower of distortion. A couple of tricky drum fills make the listener think the song's about to hit a faster tempo, but it doesn't for a few moments, remaining a bit unpredictable. It's a pretty dynamic two minutes and change, and the mosh part doesn't come until there's a good 26 seconds left. "Victory in Defeat" shows off the band's rhythmic muscle well, and its rapid changes from a fast tempo to a sludgy chug is pretty cool. The general vibe is just big and burly here, and while the band's starting to depend slightly less on '90s hardcore for their sound, "Victory" gets in a few guitar tones here and there that sound sweetly familiar.
Suburban Scum also have some debt to '90s hardcore, though their songs are longer and more deliberate. Their vocals are less distinct than Incendiary's, but the guitars have more time to show off a good variety of tones and riffs. It reminds me somewhat of a a slightly thuggier/thicker take on One Truth's lengthier tracks. "Land of the Lost" has an especially enjoyable guitar tone about it, but also a bit of nodding to the brute versions of late '80s/early '90s NYHC. I'm not a fan of the lowered bellowing that comes at its end, but at least there's a portion of vocal versatility being strived for.
Overall, a solid and fairly overlooked hardcore split from the last few months.