If you’re reading this blog (you are) there’s probably a good chance you’re into dark music- whatever that may be to you. The hunt for new and overlooked records will have you running into the same 5 or so bands or singles per sub-genre with the same spiels about how such and such record is under exposed.
Enter Neglect. Often recommended for people looking for Hardcore bands with darker lyrical themes, Neglect was founded and folded in the early to mid-1990s in Long Island, NY.
Their sound was typical for the Hardcore zeitgeist at the turn of the 1990s. Heavier, slower, groovier, meatier, essentially embracing what Pantera saw as Hardcore music’s potential, but with lyrics on suicide, premature death and nihilism.
If you’re looking for darker records in an emotional sense, you might find this record lacking in depth. Suicide, hatred, death, and anger- if you were ever 16 and inspired by Black Flag’s Damaged to punch a mirror and hurt yourself, this is probably a record that will resonate with you. If that sounds a little too 2-dimensional or underdeveloped to you, you’re not alone.
This extreme degree of anger (self-directed and otherwise) undermines its own emotional impact by drowning out (or leaving out) any nuance in an attempt to win Hardcore’s own anger pissing contest.
Fans of this kinda stuff (I’ve been one at different times of my life) will defend it by saying that it’s ‘brutally honest’ (whatever that means), and to their emotional truth that may very well be the case.
Neglect’s The Complete Don Fury Sessions is a compilation released in 2005 of the band’s work with prolific Hardcore producer Don Fury (production credits include Agnostic Front, Gorilla Biscuits, Born Against, and more). Besides the few movie sample intros and outros it’s a no-thrills album. A bit muddy but all’s fair in hard and core.
For fans of: Pantera, Everybody Gets Hurt, Next Step Up
Like Neglect? Give these a listen: Deceased, xMeans to an Endx, Fuck The Facts
The Resident Sound 