Destroy All Music Presents: Going Home

The DIY music scene is one of the most committed and fostering communities I’ve ever been lucky to be part of, but it’s a community in trouble. The very nature of DIY requires continuous effort from artists, promoters, fans and venues, and this last piece, the DIY space—arguably the most imperative of all—is in danger of disappearing. Issues like unavailability or unaffordability of space and the ever-present threat of shutdown from cranky neighbors or authority figures are taking their toll on the existence of DIY venues.

Without a safe space to create and promote and perform, artists and their art also become threatened. But CT label/distro/collective Destroy All Music is striving to reverse the damage with the release of their new compilation Going Home.

Though still a relatively young project, Destroy All Music have already proven themselves a pivotal part of CT’s DIY music scene. Besides regularly hosting and promoting shows, their very first compilation released earlier this year forwarded all proceeds to the victims of California’s vicious wildfires, so it’s no surprise that they’ve organized a similar campaign to support their own community. And that’s why every penny collected from sales goes directly to supporting important DIY venues in New England.

Going Home is packed with tunes from seminal New England acts, reflecting the massive spectrum of genres and styles this region has to offer. Like Destroy All Music, these acts are all banding together to breathe life into their community, donating their tunes to the record and the cause. Compilations like this not only provide a gateway into the many artists honing their craft in New England, but bring those scattered sects of the DIY community together, reminding us that we are all working towards the same goal despite the distances between us.

Destroy All Music and the many talented bands on Going Home are the very essence of the DIY scene, coming together and leading the way to keep their community alive and thrashing. If you’ve ever been to a basement show or “asked a punk” where to catch your favorite touring act, you know how important this community is. How creative. How resilient.

DIY is where every band starts, where your favorite artist started. So pick up a copy of this comp today, and help make sure there’s always a space for artists to grow, and for fans to support them.

Going Home is available digitally on Destroy All Music’s Bandcamp page. You can also grab physical copies starting December 1st from Destroy All Music's distro or from any of the fine acts on the compilation.

Down with Rent - Entitled Millennial Scum

For the disaffected and marginalized sections of our community, the meeting place is not the town hall, but the dive bars and DIY spaces where hardcore and punk shows are happening so regularly. Punk music gives us a collective outlet for our frustrations, as well as a forum for confronting and changing the asinine aspects of our society. In CT, no band is making better use of this platform than Down With Rent, and with their new full-length Entitled Millennial Scum, they’re breaking out the artillery.

Down With Rent is renowned in the local scene for their explosive live shows, and Entitled Millennial Scum perfectly presses that energy and experience to record. The performances are volatile, almost too powerful for the speakers playing them. The drums thunder out beats so fast, I’m out of breath just listening. The guitar rages along aggressive chord progressions, resonant palm mutes, and searing feedback. The bass guitar’s tone alone feels like a kick in the stomach, riding atop thumping lines and growling low notes that boom within my chest cavity. The vocals thrash with throaty screams and fierce shouts, each absolutely vicious word hitting as hard as the guitar or drums.

The sound of Entitled Millennial Scum is pure and unadultered vitriol, but the lyrics are what give it a focused target. Down With Rent is fearless in calling out the hypocrisies that abound in our society. Lines like “Make no mistake / they won’t hesitate / to take everything / and leave you on the pavement to die” call out the indiscriminate greed and selfishness of the powers that be, a heady reminder that anyone playing the game will happily step on you to win it. In a similar vein, “Entitled to Everything” both pokes fun at generational disconnect with the line “Don’t ask me if you owe us a living / We want this planet and everything in it” before pointing out that action is what earns respect, not age. Entitled Millennial Scum is relentless in both energy and substance, a record seething with honest, no-holds-barred critique of the many cracks in the façade of our country.

One of my favorite aspects of Entitled Millennial Scum is how cohesively it flows. Each song rolls right into the next with nary a second wasted, swells of feedback tying the tunes together and driving the momentum of the record forward. Samples of news reports and police confrontations stitched into a couple tracks help reinforce the political tone of the album throughout. Entitled Millennial Scum is truly a record without a single boring moment—front-to-back, it plays with an integrity and energy that keeps my head and heart locked in.

No matter where you stand, Down With Rent’s new record packs serious punch. Every single song is loaded with kickass riffs, heady screams, and the unbridled energy that is this band’s trademark. Entitled Millennial Scum is a feverish punk powerhouse, the sound of a riot breaking out in the streets punctuated by brutal breakdowns and breakneck drumbeats, giving a furious voice to the fears and unrest so many of us live under every day. So put this record on repeat, and crank it up and up until it makes you deaf—you’re entitled to it.

My Top Track: “Can’t Swim”

You can find more from Down With Rent, including upcoming shows and news, on their Facebook page and on Instagram. Then head over to their Bandcamp and grab your own copy of Entitled Millennial Scum.

Down with Rent - Like a Pane of Breaking Glass

I am very fortunate to be a witness to a talented, diverse, and progressive local music scene, and I think it’s about time I used this platform, small though it may be, to shout out some of those local acts whose incredible live performances and immersive recordings are making this the best time and place for music. So, let’s kick things off with Like a Pane of Breaking Glass, the latest and greatest release by local Connecticut rippers Down with Rent.

Clocking in at barely eight minutes, Like a Pane of Breaking Glass delivers a mainline dose of vicious hardcore punk straight to the brain. Down with Rent takes the well-worn template of grinding guitars and slash beats and smashes it into something wholly unique and unrelenting—the song “Down with Rent” sounds like a race between the band members, the guitar gaining on the bass in the verse only to be overtaken by the drums in the chorus. “Sins and Needles” all but demands slam-dancing with its blistering guitar riffs, while the title track swings the spotlight onto the rhythm section, drums and bass crashing against each other in a tsunami of sound.

Like a Pane of Breaking Glass exhibits Down with Rent’s visceral tendencies towards fast tempos and loud screams, but the opening track “Anchors” delves even farther into that energy. Kicking off with a bombastic, overdriven bassline, the band quickly falls into a pounding riff that sounds like Godzilla stomping through Tokyo. The primeval, desperate vocals bring a volatility to the atmosphere, punctuating the verse with a throaty scream of “Do you know how Atlas felt?” Down with Rent wields this trudging tempo for as long as they can bear, but as the song nears its end, they become fed up with it, cutting the time in half and careening towards a catastrophic end capped by the defiant statement: “You say that you hold up the world / But you’re just the anchor.”

Without a doubt, Like a Pane of Breaking Glass is a power-packed EP that exudes energy and fervor; my only complaint is simply that there’s not more of it. Down with Rent collects the rage of their generation and turns it outwards at the world, seeking to shake the planet itself from Atlas’ grasp. If you have the chance to catch one of their furious and feedback-laden live shows, do not miss out—just prepare to lose your voice as you shout along.

My top track: “Anchors”

You can find more from Down with Rent, including upcoming live shows and news, on Facebook. Then grab your own copy of Like a Pane of Breaking Glass at their Bandcamp page, out via Destroy All Music.