#totalpunk

Foster Care, El Abuso (Total Punk, 2019)

Foster Care have realized that a good hardcore record is like a symphony. El Abuso moves like a hungry snake, with bursts of energy, and attacks in several different ways to always keep you on your toes. They’ve been playing fast as fuck punk rock for over a decade now. They’re angry, unless you’re angry too, in which case, hey, take it easy dickface, nothing really matters and we’re all boogers being flicked into space. Basically, Foster Care are here just to piss us off.

Seriously, as I keep spinning this record, I can’t get over how carefully constructed it is, especially for a record that apparently screams “we don’t give a fuck”: the album art is beautiful and glossy and the tracklist is perfect. Side A: 3 bangers, interlude, 2 weirder numbers (one of them, “Rack Brain”, probably the best of the lot, managing to make you think of the Germs but if they were from Boston, not LA). Side B: starts out sounding like that 90s “gunk punk” business—the Dirtys and Free Cocaine-era Dwarves spring to mind, but with all the rock and less of the roll; then it seamlessly morphs into punishing ultrafast hardcore for a couple of tracks, and closes with a wonderfully long repetitive fight song that will knock the teeth off the nosy asshole on the other side of the paper-thin wall.

Speaking of being horrible to your neighbors, now take this with a grain of salt since I’ve been holed up in Europe for over a decade, but I’m pretty sure the New York attitude emanating from this record is undeniable. I don’t know what it is: a particular way of sounding pissed off, or the economy and efficiency of the songs, or the self-deprecating aura. “Fuck the connoisseurs”, it proclaims on the back cover. “Stuff it down the drain”. I say, give it a try and see if you don’t want to down the whole bottle.

Click here to listen to El Abuso on Bandcamp.