BILL BONDSMEN
Track Listing:
| Lungs Sieze | ||
| MP3 | 11/07/2004 | |
| Down With The King | ||
| MP3 | End Of The Cool / Signals | |
| Stitches (In My Head) / I Wanna Kill Somebody |
Reviews:
| MASS MOVEMENT (WALES) |
| See, you always know that with Acme, you’re going to get something special. Maybe it’s because John Evicci (who runs the label) loves eighties Hardcore, or maybe it’s because he plays in Out Cold, whatever. It doesn’t matter. You know before you play it, that it’s going to go that extra mile…and the Bill Bondsmen are no exception. Six blazing HC tracks that remind me of Roger Miret fronting a mixture of Fratricide, Black Flag and the Big Boys, that just don’t let up and reach all the places that good HC bands should. Time for the album I reckon…. |
| RAZORCAKE #33 |
| These guys continue to impress with seven more slabs of solid hardcore short on frills and long on attitude. When they really get a good groove going, like on “Down with the King,” they come close to rivaling new label mates Out Cold’s sheer power. Great stuff. |
| EQUILIZING DISTORT (CANADA) |
| Bill Bondsmen remind me a lot of Career Suicide in approach. This Motor City foursome approach hardcore in a way that draws on a KBD style of roots punk and fuses it with an early American sounding style of hardcore. The result is a sound that borrows the musicality of punk with the fiery-ness of hardcore. On this EP I hear the Bondsmen going for the energy of Reagan Youth with the vocals and chops of Poison Idea. The first time I heard Bill Bondsmen was on the “Hibachi Omnibus, Volume 2” comp and they were the standout band on the comp. The band has already released an out of print EP called “The Swinging Sounds of the Bill Bondsmen” and they are working on a split label release with Schizophrenic. This second EP comes at you with a choppy slashing sound that would make their rust belt peers proud. The intros remind me a bit of the punk rock retro-fitting that Fucked Up have been doing with ringing guitar pieces, but Bill Bondsmen dispense with the formalities and rip into high velocity hardcore that would suit Out Cold just fine. A testament to the rough and barren scene of Detroit. |
| TERMINAL BOREDOM |
| As many of you out there that actually condescend to read anything I write know, I’m a Michigan native who now resides in Chicago, Illinois. That said, I feel I have the right to tell you the honest to God truth: Michigan fucking sucks! It’s a boring shitty state where there’s hardly anything to do outside of dinner and a movie and there are hardly any good bands coming out of said state these days and that’s been the case for a long damn time now. For years upon years shitty, forgettable MI bands would roll through your city to play shitty, forgettable tunes to you while posing and literally faking it the whole way through their limp-ass, weak-ass sets. Well, not the Bill Bondsmen. The Bondsmen are one of the most real and honest bands on the face of the planet. Hailing from Detroit, MI, comes the Bill Bondsmen with their sophomore effort here on John Evicci’s Acme Records and if this fucker doesn’t rip the tits off a bitch there ain’t a record out there that will. Recorded once again with Jim Diamond at Ghetto Recorders we get five pissed off tunes of pure Midwestern humor, alienation, hate, and rage all done up with a sarcastic style of intellect that leaves this nut job grinning through the night. This time around though the Bondsmen have really upped the ante and improved on their already excellent songwriting and have actually developed a sound that’s truly all their own. Great ripping hardcorepunk that the rest of the crowd really needs to start latching onto as these guys aren’t getting any younger and have proven with this record that they’re easily one of the best bands in modern punk today. Top ten material for sure. Get this record or die an unhappy torturous death!! |
| SLUG & LETTUCE #87 |
| A handful of rippers on this one, with muisical hints of Black Flag with snarled vocals packing a punch. It's good to see bands pull off the "sound" of '80s punk/hardcore without sounding like a cheap xerox copy. This keeps the musical pace set rather high with enjoyable tunes throughout, though the vocals seem to have a weird distortion effect or something on them that I wasn't really into. |
| SHORT, FAST & LOUD #15 |
| Here's the sophomore release from this Detroit hardcore band and it's a head-kicker!! Nasty, wretching vocals, similar to Japanese HC vocals at times, mesh uneasily with pounding '80s hardcore stuff. Vile black lyrics dealing with death and stuff, even a song about a homicidal Burger King mascot gone mad. This delinquent unit end with a cover of the Alan Milman Sect's "Stitches/I Wanna Kill Somebody" medley to finish you off with excellent disturbed shit!! |
| SUBURBAN VOICE |
| The second EP from the Michigan-based Bondsmen and dishing out some slashing hardcore. Not fitting any mold. Yowling vocals and arrangements that bring to mind a combination of Poison Idea, Black Flag and Die Kreuzen, yet they have their own sound. Following me here? If punk is supposed to convey feelings of alienation, these guys have it down. Ends with a good 'n raw cover of the Alan Millman Sect's "Stitches In My Head/I Wanna Kill Somebody." Hell yeah... |
Pressing history:
| FORMAT | PRESSING | DATE | QUANTITY | DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTIC |
| 7" | 1 | February 2006 | 1100 |
