Hear Hardcore Vets Racetraitor Skewer Racist America With New Song "BLK XMAS" | Revolver

Hear Hardcore Vets Racetraitor Skewer Racist America With New Song "BLK XMAS"

Chicago band, featuring Fall Out Boy's Andy Hurley, issue politically charged new single and video

Chicago hardcore group Racetraitor have been political from the jump, since they formed back in 1996. Two decades later, they reunited, and now they're set to release their first full-length LP 2042 on October 12th. (You can pre-order the album now via Good Fight Music.) In the 20-year gap between albums, the band hasn't mellowed one iota and they set their sights on America's deeply entrenched and sometimes subtly expressed racism with "BLK XMAS."

The song is a pure strain of viciousness, weaving in moments of uncomfortable melody that immediately give way for pummeling riffs, and a pounding use of drums courtesy of Andy Hurley (Fall Out Boy, SECT). The video catalogs brutality through the ages, from images of skulls of the past, to footage of race riots of the 1950s.

"'BLK XMAS' is really about how absurd it is that people, like the Fox News crowd, try to insist that Jesus or even fictional characters like Santa Clause are white," says vocalist Mani Mostofi. "On one hand it is totally absurd and laughable, but on the other hand, it goes hand and glove with the type of racist and xenophobic sense of cultural purity that gives rise to something like Trump.

"Whether it is 'Fear of a Black Planet' or 'Fear of a Spanish-speaking America,' it's all propaganda designed to get white people to follow a political line that barely benefits most of them beyond a false sense of superiority."

Hurley adds, "With all that is going on in the world, we are trying to make a record that pulls no punches in the music or the message. We want to inspire punks, hardcore kids and metalheads, and maybe piss off a few racists along the way."