Label: Neon Taste
Released 2023
Please welcome the grand, timely and thoroughly welcome return of Chain Whip. Straight out of the gate, their second full-length Call Of The Knife is absolutely raging. The opening title track might have you squinting at the turntable for a couple of seconds to check that someone hasn't reanimated the young Circle Jerks, but as soon as frontman Josh Nickel's voice kicks in, hardcore cognoscenti will be under no illusions that they could possibly be listening to anyone else. His voice is a righteous, gravelly roar that cuts straight through the noise with the very loose subtext "I'm having a bad day and it's imperative that you know about it." There's a vitality to it that helps make these Vancouver boys one of the best bands in punk today, and it helps that he's backed up by a rattling, rolling collective who remind us all that good old-fashioned hardcore (like the '80s used to make) remains one of the best ideas anyone's ever had. You know what you're getting with song titles like "Class Decay" and "Hatewave," but there's something about the band's garage-slanted take on the genre that makes them a cut above. On this sort of delicious form, no one can touch Chain Whip right now. Form a cult and get obsessed immediately.
Track listing:
- Call Of The Knife
- Class Decay
- Hatewave
- Toothless
- Something's Gotta Give
- Re-Decapitated
- Deserve The Flame
- I Can't Get
- Teenage Kinks
- The Flag Means You Suck
- Part Zero
- State Hornets
- King Rat