Bandit – Playfastordie

Rough, raw, and reckless, Playfastordie by America’s Bandit is a crazy run through basement-ethic punk, powerviolence, grindcore, and hardcore. The entire presentation is ‘underground’, with a B level mix coupled to new-level punk musicianship. They’ve got the basic beats, chords, and screams down, but need a lot of work on dialing in tone and togetherness. Or maybe they don’t. Maybe the raw sloppy craziness, cassette tape mix, psychotic screaming, and mid-1990s AOL era typography is the point – after all, if the band is as anarchic as it seems, this is the perfect challenge to “musicianship”. It might be great and it might not; this is a polarizing album, made for a certain niche listener.

Songs are short, buzzy, and angry, with fleeting and frenetic ideas. “Live In Fear” mostly consists of blown speaker noise. While low-pitched, it sounds like static to an average older concert goer (who’s had their hearing dulled by a few loud bands playing through blown PA stacks). “xTrendy” has some genuine attempts at melody. “To Cross The Line” starts with that same blown speaker noise. Mostly it’s a very unpolished presentation, and the musicianship isn’t too convincing, beyond about an early Sex Pistols level. Most vocals are a cross between hardcore and grindcore: screaming, shouting, and generally insane.

There is so much music being circulated these days. Bandit’s ‘unpolished, garage, underground’ angle is extremely common. If you’ve never heard underground grind before – and you should have, with Napalm Death‘s Scum being required listening for any extreme metal fanatic – if this is your first exposure to genuinely angry sounding musicians, then the sheer intensity of album is going to blow you away. If you are accustomed to metal music, where vocalists usually sound pretty mad, but the musicianship is generally ten times cleaner, Playfastordie is going to hit the “nope” spot in, oh, about four seconds.

Track listing:
P.F.O.D.
Thrive
IntroxOutroxFuckYou!
Live In Fear
xTrendyx
To Cross The Line
You’ve Pushed Me Too Far
Perpetual Being
Die (Death By Powerviolence)
Forever In A Daze
Hands On The Chopping Block / Waste Away
Dismemberer
Where’s Your Head?
That’s Life
Not Today
Pig Roast
Hellmouth
Just Don’t
Pain

Links:
Official Band Facebook Page
Official Band Twitter Page