ALBUM REVIEW: Concrete Cowboys – Buggin
People talk about new waves of this, that and the other all the time, but it really is hard not to feel some sense of excitement about all that’s happening in hardcore at the moment especially. SCOWL, ZULU, GEL, JIVEBOMB, END IT, SPEED; we could list killer examples all day so it’s probably best just to get straight to the point with BUGGIN. Formed in 2018, the Chicago-based four-piece are firmly on the hype train at the moment, and their debut full-length Concrete Cowboys is only going to spin those wheels faster still as it arrives via the seemingly omnipresent and always brilliant Flatspot Records.
To put it simply, Concrete Cowboys is infectious. With 12 tracks packed into less than 20 minutes – only three of them even clear the two-minute mark, and not by much in each case – it’s a high-energy hardcore ripper that strikes a wonderful balance between outright speed and effortless swagger as frontperson Bryanna Bennett presides over all with fury and charisma alike. The production plays a key role in bringing all this to life too, with a chunky bass tone, sharp guitars and punchy drums all finding their place in a mix that feels appropriately live and raw but never frustratingly messy or loose and careless.
It’s no surprise then that Concrete Cowboys is also a seriously fun hardcore record. BUGGIN are definitely happy to have a laugh and a good time, as evidenced by recent single Snack Run – an ode to exactly what the title says – and with gang vocal parts everywhere and riotous highlights like Get It Out, the title track, and more melodic later cuts like Redacted and Youth, the main takeaway here is of an album designed for maximum audience participation, as is surely guaranteed at the band’s upcoming and unmissable appearance at Outbreak Fest here in the UK amid a run of headlining European dates.
That said though, the band do get a little more pissed at points. The Customer Is Always Wrong is a mid-album rager that deals in the sheer exasperation that anyone who has worked in the service industry will be all too familiar with (“The customer is always wrong / You will never do my job”). Also particularly memorable is eighth track Not Yours in which Bennett rails against the tokenization of women and non-binary people in the hardcore scene (“Call us female fronted you can eat my fist”). BUGGIN may be here for a good time first and foremost, but that won’t stop them spinkicking you straight in the head if they feel the need to.
Ultimately it is this combination of fun and fury that makes Concrete Cowboys such a great record. While so many bands often focus far more heavily on the latter, BUGGIN have a firm grasp of the fact that hardcore is really meant to be about both of those things. Combined with the perfectly tight runtime, it makes this album easy to come back to time and time again, or just to spin it three or four times in a row, and as mentioned if you are in the UK you really better not miss this lot at Outbreak or the New Cross Inn in London if you get the chance in a few weeks’ time.
Rating: 8/10
Concrete Cowboys is set for release on June 2nd via Flatspot Records.
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