2000 was an interesting time for us kids who got into punk during the great Green Day boom of 1994. By 2000, we were in our early twenties, our high school pop punk bands had broken up and our musical tastes were branching out, but we still had a ton of youthful energy. This lost album, recorded by Long Island’s Explosivo! in 2000, captures that era well. The vocals are hoarsely sung and the music is based on melodic punk, but the riffs and arrangements have a special complexity that recalls the chaotic hardcore of that era. Sure, you could draw lines between Explosivo! and Hot Water Music or Planes Mistaken For Stars, but this record doesn’t sound typical or derivative, even a decade later. Catchy music played with hardcore ferocity, still-true song titles like “Metallica Died with Cliff Burton,” and the kind of cartoony post-zine art that DIY records had back then. Nostalgia trip or not, I present this record as a rebuttal to anyone who finds hardcore tuneless or pop punk toothless.
–CT Terry (Dead Broke)