PHANTOM - 7 SONG DEMO
Hardcore punk lost its swagger. Dried up, boring, and passe, it’s suffered from its own success. More accessible than ever thanks to chaotic shows and attitude in droves blasted over social media, it's become a diluted, muddled mess of insincere and lazy bands playing music that demands candor. Finding a diamond in the rough among the unwashed masses becomes a chore, and doubly so on five bands stacked with filler. And then, sometimes, it’s easy as can be.
Such was the case this Saturday when I first saw Phantom. Vaguely aware due to a friend’s incessant raving, I had given a cursory listen in his car and nothing more. That was until they started playing. Graced by the intoxicating aroma of the Schuylkill River and the sloshing beer cans sailing overhead, I was greeted by a twenty minute set of rip roaring, piss dripping hardcore punk smarmy enough to do Das Oath proud. I was captivated, forced to move as butt flaps and rat tails whipped by me.
Call it thrashcore, fastcore, or hardcore punk, Phantom is refreshingly urgent in a scene diluted by the passe, repetitious, and melodramatic. The appropriately named 7 Song Demo is a smorgasbord of blistering punk attacks that blend the blunt force of Guyana Punch Line with the contemptuous sneers of Active Ingredients.
“Big Bore” kicks things off with a fairly straightforward fastcore ripper, before launching into “Canker”. While initially much the same, it crawls to a halt with the jaunting, off-kilter swagger of NASA Space Universe. “You’re a Living Hell” slows things down, if only momentarily, before launching itself forward full-force. “Object”, the seventh and final track, is a roiling, tumultuous beast that ends things in car crash fashion.
At nine minutes and nine seconds, 7 Song Demo is an acute application of sneering hardcore punk. Feverish in its devotion and acerbic to a point, Phantom delivers seven tracks of prime fastcore quirky enough to set themselves apart. As introductions go, Phantom could do a whole lot worse than 7 Song Demo.
