Hardcore, in fact, all music for that matter, feeds off itself.  It is a constant crucible of influences and inspirations being reformed and reimagined, taken in new directions, yet in constant communication with its past.  Now some bands prove masters at refining and honing the existing.  Others choose to go against the flow, forging a distinctive identity, their innovation often not fully recognised until they have been and gone.  The two band’s we are going to focus on, San Diego’s Unbroken and Seattle’s Stay Gold, definitely fall into the latter category.  Indecision Records have recently reissued both Ritual and Life. Love. Regret by Unbroken and Stay Gold’s Pills And Advice, having worked with Unbroken to bring their music back into circulation since 2000, and having originally released Pills And Advice in 2002.  Each has proven to be hugely influential for those that followed.

‘We never slow down to maybe see a different side, Try to understand there’s other things in life, Reaching outward searching for something else, Treading on and never seeing other ways to live, We follow this path, A path paved by someone else’ (Zero Hour, Unbroken)

There is something almost intimidating about putting pen to paper in respect of Ritual and Life. Love. Regret., so integral are they to my understanding of what hardcore can be.  To this day, the fusion of unvarnished humanity, fiercely honed metallic riffage, and darkly melancholic melody is utterly spine-tingling.

Unbroken were originally active between 1991 and 1995, and since reforming for a memorial show for guitarist Eric Allen in 1998, the band have made periodic returns to the live arena.  As well as an array of EPs, the band recorded two full-length albums of which 1993’s Ritual was the first.  All the hallmarks of the band’s iconic, if not yet all fully realised, sound are readily identifiable.  Harsh heartfelt vocals rhythmically explore themes of personal values in the face of imposed social rationalities as the band unleash a brilliantly crafted fusion of hardcore sincerity and metallic intensity.  Stand-out moments include the fierce breakdown on Zero Hour that leads to a ferocious, almost Rollins-esque vocal eruption, the utterly brutal riff that defines Shallow from its mid-point, and the bleak melodicism that shapes Reflection and was to become ever more integral to the band’s sound.

‘If it was real progression, greed would not dictate our souls, If it was real progression, we’d give back what we stole, If it was real progression, we’d burn these lies all down’ (In The Name Of Progression, Unbroken)

The band returned to the studio 12-months later to record Life. Love. Regret. While Unbroken’s sound was one that continually evolved and reformulated itself around its core tenets, this is, perhaps, for many the definitive Unbroken sound. From the moment that the darkly ominous opening riff to D4 unfurls, the intensity never dims.  The riffage still bristles, but feels more muscular, the haunting melodicism that flared throughout Ritual is now riven through the music, and the vocals remain raw, impassioned as they explore both our society’s distorted socio-economic drivers and more personal reflections of emotional isolation.  Defining moments abound.  The spoken word interlude of In The Name Of Progress before the cathartic climax, the menacing melody that fashions the utterly ferocious Razor, the swinging bass line that propels Final Expression, the stomping aggression of Blanket with its frantic mantra of ‘It won’t save you’, the fraught, intense, almost brittle, closer Curtain.

Unbroken released three further EPs before initially calling it a day in 1995 and members went on to play in Swing Kids (Eric Allen), Narrows / Some Girls (Rob Moran), and Kill Holliday (Todd Beattie / Steven Miller).  The band will be playing London for only the second time on Friday, 22nd November at The Dome.

‘But there are things I would stand up and fight for, there are things I would lay down my life for, convictions in my heart, my soul have meshed with, I’d give you all the blood that flows through my wrist’. (Toy Boats & Battleships, Stay Gold)

Turning to Stay Gold, it takes real creative courage to set out to play music that goes against the grain of your contemporaries.  Many who do simply get swept away by the force of the flow in the other direction, while some successfully sow the seeds for a new direction but they too disappear before the fruits are yielded. Ahead of their time reads the epitaph and one that is frequently applied to Stay Gold.  They were a band whose name always cropped up amongst mid-2000s melodic hardcore bands as a key influence, even the inspiration to start playing.  Yet, outside of the Pacific Northwest region, they had flown largely under the radar by the time they called it a day in 2002.

When Stay Gold formed in 1999, they consciously wanted to reconnect with the roots of US hardcore, a tradition that they felt was being subsumed under the weight of the heavily metallic interpretations (I suppose arguably the outer swells of Unbroken’s impact) that dominated US hardcore at the time.  The aim was for high energy, melodic hardcore with a social conscience.  The band released two EPs in 2001, Staygold and Caught Up In The Moment, before embarking on what was to prove a pretty disastrous East Coast tour, including the ritual border issues wiping out the majority of the Canadian dates.  By the time, the band returned home to record their debut full-length, relationships were rather frayed and Pills And Advice was to be the band’s swansong, with the album release show proving to also be their final show.

And quite the swansong it is.  The album embodies the essence of what Stay Gold were seeking to achieve – urgently robust, melodically charged hardcore, saturated through with a deep sense of the unrequited, the never to be realised.  And it was, perhaps, this intriguing intertwining of aggressively energetic hardcore with deep-seated melancholy that was to prove the band’s most important legacy.  And the depth of the song writing still shines through – from the surging opener Best Kept Secret to the raucous Below The Surface, from the bristling aggression of 40 Smith And Wesson to the cathartic eruption of Toy Boats And Battleships.

Three albums that are not only superb on their own terms, but were also integral to shaping and influencing the shape of hardcore to come.

(For more thoughts on Unbroken check out my short piece, Metallic Unicorns And Pompadours, which discusses a fascinating recent interview with the band’s bassist, Rob Moran, on the Cult And Culture podcast)