Hear Philly Hardcore Crew Fixation's Seething New 'Into the Pain' EP in Full | Revolver

Hear Philly Hardcore Crew Fixation's Seething New 'Into the Pain' EP in Full

Band channels Infest, No Tolerance on furious new offering for WAR Records
fixation_2_photo_by_Alex Koutsman -web.jpg, Alex Koutsman
photograph by Alex Koutsman

Between New York City and its surrounding areas like New Jersey and Connecticut, you can count on some of the most important hardcore punk of all time. Yet Philadelphia is also a bastion of some greats of the genre, playing host to killer acts from Y.D.I. to Blacklisted, Dan Yemin and his many great projects (though Resurrection is a New Jersey band, later works like Kid Dynamite, Paint it Black are Philly-based), Ink & Dagger, Horrorshow, Jesus Piece and on and on. To call the city anything but crucial to the strength of the East Coast hardcore's overall musical well-being would be wholly inaccurate.

Fixation calls Philadelphia home, yet the band shares little in common to the above, instead baring their teeth with the same venom as Infest or No Tolerance: scathing, vein-bulging fury that attacks with subtlety of a rabid dog, frothing at the mouth and staring through you with dead eyes.

Their latest effort is the Into the Pain flexi, who's art recalls the work of Australian hardcore favorites Extortion but with more couth and civility despite showing a skinned hand. The release shows no such refinement except in the execution, delivering four venomous tracks that fans of any of the previously mentioned, as well as SPINE, Rival Mob and others, will latch onto immediately. Stream Into the Pain in full below for the first time, and order yours via WAR Records, the label founded by Andrew Kline of Strife / Berthold City.

"Musically, Into the Pain came as a logical next step from the "Marked" 7-inch that came out last summer," explains frontman Matthew Green. "We wrote the songs a few months after, around our year mark as a band, just starting to hone in on our sound enough to start writing with more intent. We sat on the tracks for a few months while we toured, and after playing the songs live enough decided to put them together as a release.

"We recorded all the tracks over a weekend with Wyatt Oberholzer in Philly, exploring some new sounds and structures from the last release. It's not a lot of music, so we made it a point to put a concerted effort into the other aspects of the release ... As for lyrical content, the record is mostly leftover sentiment from the last release, but with more of an introspective focus. Lyrics are kind of a sole diversion from my overt privacy about deeper experience, so there's a lot to go on. "

FIXATION Tour Dates:
5/12/2019 Emmanuel Episcopal - Quakertown, PA w/ Jesus Piece, Struck Nerve, Drowse, more
5/24/2019 The Burners - Bethlehem, PA w/ Miracle Drug, Dying For It, The Dividing Line