It’s impossible to overstate the influence that Quicksand have on the hardcore scene. Formed in New York City in 1990 out of the ashes of Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Burn and Bold, the band took the aggression of hardcore and added a more groove-driven crunch to it, unintentionally inventing the genre known today as a post-hardcore.  

After releasing two major-label masterpieces in the nineties—1993’s Slip and 1995’s Manic Compression—the band split up at the peak of their powers, only to reunite in 2012 and release Interiors and Distant Populations. In that spirit, Bring On The Psychics marks a new chapter for Quicksand—guitarist/vocalist Walter Schreifels, drummer Alan Cage and bassist Sergio Vega—by creating a sonic bridge for these two eras of the band. The album is just as heavy as the band’s influential nineties sound while retaining the ambitious sense of experimentation from their more recent era. “This was seriously the easiest record we’ve ever recorded… nothing compares to it,” Schreifels says of Bring On The Psychics, which was recorded by Jon Markson (Drug Church, Drain). “We got the entire thing done in about ten days and then just tightened it up.” 

Longtime Equal Vision Records’ band Bane has released their fourth and final full-length album, Don’t Wait Up, on May 13, 2014. The album was recorded in Haverhill, MA with producer Jay Maas (Defeater, Bane).

The bittersweet final album comes nearly twenty years after Bane’s first release, which led the band on countless tours and earned them widespread respect for being one of the hardest working bands in the business. Since their inception in 1995, Bane has toured all across the world countless times and has released three full-length albums: 1999’s It All Comes Down To This, 2001’s Give Blood, and 2005’s The Note, in addition to several 7”, EP and compilation releases.

Bane recently headlined in support of the album on a US tour this Spring, featuring support from Turnstile and Take Offense. Despite being the band’s final album, they will continue to tour heavily in 2015, with US dates announced with the likes of Axis and Eternal Sleep, and a massive Europe/UK run with Comeback Kid.

“I can’t believe we did it…but we did it. To me it means, we’re leaving,” shares vocalist Aaron Bedard of the new album in the band’s recent behind-the-scenes video. “This is us with our jackets on, our hair is clean and we’re walking out the door and we look back at our loved ones and we’re like…don’t wait up…we’re going to be out late tonight.”

“We’re Soul Blind, from the Hudson Valley,” is how the set starts. And the band makes good on that threat from the first note. Thick, pedal-drenched, and aggressive, Soul Blind take the heaviest elements of their hardcore roots and cut it with Modern Rock. The songs you heard in your dad’s truck are run through the unforgiving filter of the music that drew you to punk and metal. Crowbar and Stone Temple Pilots. All Out War into Tad. It’s all there, because Soul Blind doesn’t try to hide what shaped them. The result is music for the freaks. Non-denominational subculture weirdo tracks. It’s the sound of living in the shadow of NYC and never feeling jealous. The sound of proudly standing on the shoulders of local giants who never got their due. The sound of being four reprobates with nothing to offer the world but music. In other words, a real band.