I have a couple confessions to make, Hardcore is not my genre. Even in times when I need to listen to something with hardcore’s intensity, the style is not my choice. So when I was asked to review the new Born Wrong/Kleins 96 Split 10″ from Rebel Time Records I was a bit apprehensive because I hate not giving something a good review because I think the punk rock community has a lot of negativity in it, a lot of division where there should be unity. So to help me prepare for writing the review I actually Wikipedia’d Hardcore. I wanted to get a bit of history. What I found was that the term Hardcore possibly originated from DOA’s 1981 album of the same name. I guess I just found that a bit fitting considering BornWrong (Hamilton, On) and Kleins 96 (Regina,SK) are torchbearers for their countrymen’s scene.
My last confession for the night is that in a collection of 300+ punk albums, this split is only the 3rd hardcore album in it (Triple Crossed, and Sick of it All’s Based on a True Story are the other two) so I don’t have a huge frame of reference from which to draw from. When I Wikipedia’d Hardcore it also talked about the more technical aspects of the style, and while I read some of it, I didn’t take a whole lot away from that portion of the article, but what I can tell you is this, I enjoyed the 8 song album (4 by each group). It contains all of the intensity and aggressiveness that I think I always assumed hardcore was supposed to have, while also having all the emphasis on rhythm, screamed vocals, and drop tempos into musical breakdowns (thanks Wikipedia) that Hardcore fan have become accustomed to hearing.
Highlights from the album include Kleins 96 “Eucharist” and Born Wrong’s “Burn a Debt” but for fans of this genre I don’t think there is a track that you could go wrong with. Now when I need something to provide me with a little extra intensity, this is probably the album from my collection that I am going to turn to.