NO APOLOGIES - "SURVIVAL" LP

LULU'S:

Released 15 years ago this record continues to thoroughly kick my ass. It felt like a landmark Australian Hardcore LP at the time and it still remains that way. At its core are the hammer time riffs smashed down by NYHC’s sickest (Killing Time, Madball, Cro Mags et al) crossed with the bombastic nature and production values you’d hear on a Terror or Hatebreed record. On recent listens I’m hearing way more of Iron Age’s ‘Constant Struggle’ in Pete Bursky’s riffs than I ever had - that record only came out a year prior to this but I’ll be fucked if they aren’t cut from the same cloth.

No Apologies formed out of the ashes of the ultra crucial Last Nerve. After releasing an early straightforward EP, No Apologies had a pretty good run up to produce something special. With a little help from Todd Jones (NAILS, Terror etc.) they'd created a monumental album. As silly as it might sound, ‘Survival’ is a concept record. Every last bit is thought out - from the art to the lyrics to the flow of the record. The themes of birth, existence, death, and above all; living in the moment permeates all the lyrics. There’s jazz influenced interludes, organ, piano and yidaki and strangely for a hardcore band they found the album's talented drummer studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. If you’ve never heard this before, that all might sound strange but it works. Originally released on CD in 2007, Last Ride Records have finally given it the LP treatment it always deserved.