Fucking hardcore. It’s great. It’s crunchy, chaotic, and beautifully ugly. It’s ready to knock out your teeth with one well-aimed fist and send you sprawling into a bloody heap on the ground. You just can’t beat the likes of Converge, Trap Them, or Great American Ghost; they’re just too good at what they do. But when I come across a hardcore band that can go toe-to-toe with any of those latter bands, I pay attention. Dearborn’s Hollow Earth is one of these bands, with a sound that is surprisingly singular in a scene full of bands that can sometimes lack a real musical identity, and a host of incredibly talented musicians behind it all.
Hollow Earth’s latest album is 2014’s Silent Graves, an album that doesn’t even do its name justice (in a good way). As cheesy as it feels to write this, these graves are not silent. Instead, get ready for some pounding, face-shredding, knuckle-clenching, ear-gouging hardcore that would probably bring the dead to life, only to have said zombies’ heads explode from the awesomeness. Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but this is some pretty awesome hardcore, guys. Hollow Earth varies between fast, Converge-esque speed and a steady Great American Ghost-like tempo. I particularly like when they slow down, and play these heavy, blisteringly distorted open notes on the guitar and vocalist Steve Muczynski roars his heart out with some throat-shredding screams.
Their newest release, 2016’s Parting Remains EP, is just as good, if not better. Despite being a little short (again, it’s an EP, so duh…), Parting Remains has a crisp production style that only manages to add more nastiness to the band’s music, and an awesome science fiction concept to boot, with the band now humorously describing themselves as “the seminal band of the science-fiction-based-space-rock-influenced-doom-sludge genre.”
So, what are you waiting for? Check out this band, now.