Member Since: 2/27/2005
Band Website: yer lookin at it tough guy.
Band Members: This guy,
this guy,
this guy,
and, course, this guy.
Influences: mathmatics, unicorns, sandwiches, bell biv devoe
Sounds Like: http://www. realdetroitweekly. com/article_4184. shtml
Bill Bondsmen
Swallowed By The World
Dead Beat Records
(4 Stars)
It takes no more than 17 seconds to realize that after listening to the Bill Bondsmen's new record your ears are pretty much fucked. The brilliantly loud cacophony that is the band’s debut full-length, Swallowed By The World, is something that is sure to pop eardrums even on the lowest volume setting. Leading the charge is lead singer Gabby’s throaty snarl. It’s the perfect voice for hardcore punk rock — hence it being bumped up highly in the mix — and it truly displays the feeling of despair that is behind so many lyrics on this record.
Taking brutality lessons from the NYC scene, versatility from the San Francisco area and the home spun lyrics of many Midwest bands, the Bill Bondsmen have the knowledge to back up their sound. With tinges of Poison Idea, Black Flag and Negative Approach, the band acts like an all-encompassing encyclopedia of hardcore. Also fun is a Feisty Cadavers cover, “Live Like Vampires,†which features FC guitarist and Detroit punk alumnus Dave Cocagne.
The Bondsmen have created a new hardcore classic, a feat which must not go unnoticed in 2008. This is like Bad Brains' S/T record or The Adolescents' “Blue Album†for our era.
— ERIC ALLEN
Bill Bondsmen "Swallowed By the World" LP
I'd been looking forward to this one for quite a while. I've followed this band ever since they were distributing their first demo at their live shows. If you don't know this band by now you're missing out on something truly unique, original, and altogether brilliant. The Bill Bondsmen manage to throw together the best elements of fast punishing 1980's American hardcore/punk with all the best components of Japanese and other foreign hardcore/punk influences while adding in their own original touch with herky-jerky starts and stops and oddly timed breakdowns and rhythms that don't seem like they could be played the same way more than once but are, combined with the best most angry, potent, funny, and witty lyrics in punk today. Recorded by Mitch Wolf at Mitch Wolf Studios and mixed by Warn Defever at Brown Rice Studio, the sound is much rawer and more stripped down than previous recordings, which the band benefits by, giving it a far more intense feel and sound. Twelve songs in all, which the Bondsmen have really stepped up on and delivered the goods, even including a tasteful cover of Detroit punk legends Feisty Cadavers "Live Like Vampires" which rips and actually gives the original a run for its money. The record also features the best closer to a hardcore/punk album heard since Black Flag's Damaged with the eerily slow droning number "A Bird In the Hand Means You've Been Dead For A Few Days". Honestly. It's that good. All in all, an absolutely flawless LP down to the amazing artwork by Christopher Ilth, and perhaps the first classic hardcore/punk LP of the later days of the early 2000's. Personally speaking, I wouldn't change a thing.
(Dead Beat Records// www.dead-beat-records.com)
Matt Coppens, Terminal Boredom
http://www. globalpunkreview. com/gpr/modules. php?name=News&file=topics&topic=25
If I had the tech savvy to string together video clips I could use today's , yesterday's, or even tomorrow's broadcast of the news and string together the footage. Twenty-four minutes worth and I would have an accompanying video for Swallowed By The World.
Economic failure, layoffs, war, murders, the blank faces of our walking dead we call the middle class. I could go on and on really. This CD covers it all. It's one of those records that come along now and again that define an era, and here we are... fukked.
Tell me you don't feel Swallowed right now!This record was about a full year in the making. I have no idea what their process is, but whatever took so long was worth it. I don't have a point of reference for this CD. I cant say of it reminds of ___________ with a touch of __________. No it doesn't. It wouldn't do it justice.
It's definitely hardcore, but that sells it short I think. A good listen with headphones or a totally cranked system and you're gonna hear intricacies not usually heard on any hardcore record. These touches don't fuck with the delivery either - it enhances the rage! If that's possible! The vocal is nothing short of raging!!! My throat gets sore just listening to the vocals.
Twelve tracks on this record and not one dud. Highlights for me... Answer Me, and the cover of the Feisty Cadavers song Live Like Vampires, which features Dave Cocagne from the Feisty Cadavers on guitar, and Swallowed By the World. Clocking in at 4:24, A Bird In Hand Means You've been Dead For A Few Days is as close to an opus as hardcore gets. Trust me though, its power will hold your attention.
Bottom line, if you're a punk, thrasher, or hardcore fan you'll want this CD and it'll raise the standards for what kick ass means .If you're in a band, and your going to make a hardcore record, listen to this CD closely. Don't even try to copy it, but take a cue from the vehement spit spewing rage that's captured here. Swallowed By The World is the new hardcore Bible, now it's up to someone to come up with it's Koran.
Michael Rys - 5/6/2008
Record Label: all of them.
Type of Label: Indie