Some Nights, The Pit Is Not For You

The headline up above? It's a lie. The pit is always for you. It's for everyone. One of the cool things about a hardcore show is that there is absolutely no barrier to participation. (I mean that both metaphorically and, usually, literally. If you see a stage barrier, you might not be at a hardcore show.) Anyone sufficiently motivated by music and/or bloodlust can get in there and fuck something up, as long as they are willing to get fucked up in turn. That's the beauty of it — friends and strangers crashing into each other and/or spinkicking in each other's general direction. You're a part of it just by virtue of your presence in the room.If you're the reckless type of human being who charges headlong into every pit you see, I can only salute you. You are putting yourself at risk to contribute to a crazy environment. Thank you. If you never go in pits and you only watch from the back of the room, fair enough! You're still part of it! I am too old and infirm and ungainly to swing limbs around except on those rare occasions when something activates my inner berskerker. Mostly, I like to be near the pit. Moving around a little. Catching some stagedivers. Having people wheel into me every once in a while. That's my sweet spot. But I always have to assess the situation. Sometimes, the situation tells me that I need to stay away from the pit.I already wrote about this when it happened, but a few years ago, on the day my book came out, I was in New York, and so were God's Hate. I was not going to miss the opportunity to see God's Hate live. What I didn't realize is that there was an AEW pay-per-view in New Jersey that weekend, which meant that the pit was full of wrestlers. It wasn't just Brody King up onstage; it was his colleagues out in the crowd — guys who I regularly watch on TV — out there moshing hard. I wasn't going near that pit. That pit was simply not the place for me. I like the idea of saying that I moshed with wrestlers, and it's not like I really thought Darby Allin would take my head off. But I don't sprinkle broken glass on my bedsheets at night, I don't keep piranhas in my bathtub, and I don't put myself in situations where I might catch an Eddie Kingston spinning backfist. I stayed at the back of the room that night.When Division Of Mind held their record-release show in Richmond a couple of weeks ago, I didn't stay at the back of the room, but I didn't get near the pit, either. That felt like a VIP-only pit. It was not a pit for dabblers. You had to take that pit seriously. At least, that was my assumption. I couldn't really see what was happening in the pit. It was really, really dark in there, and that darkness informed my decision. Basically, Division Of Mind got some of the evilest, heaviest bands on the current landscape to play in a packed, cavernous room that looked like the Batcave. It was fucking awesome, and the danger in the air was part of the appeal.In the time that I've been writing this column, I have probably discussed more live sets from Division Of Mind than any other band. I happen to live near Richmond, the scene that they call home. Their shows are true events around here. They make people go crazy. DOM's self-titled album came out just before I started writing this column, and I didn't go to its record-release show because I figured I'd see all the same bands at the United Blood festival a few months later. That was early in 2020. The fest eventually happened, but not until five years later. I should've gone to that fucking show. Earlier this year, DOM finally dropped their long-awaited sophomore LP Exoterror, and it's a beast of a record, one of my favorites of the year. Exoterror deserved an absolute epic of a record-release show, and that's what it got.In this space, I have tried and failed to discuss Division Of Mind's live show many times. They're always fucking awesome. Their music is dark and heavy and overpowering, and they put their entire beings into playing it. If they play anywhere within a two-hour drive of where you are, you should really try to see them. But this was my third time seeing them in 2026 alone, so I'd rather use this space to talk about the atmosphere that they fostered. Most of the times that I've seen them were at the Warehouse, the DIY venue that they were involved in running, and that place is tragically gone now. Their Exoterror release show was at a different DIY space, one that was new to me, and that place was fascinating.I will not name this DIY space because I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble, but it was basically a giant basement crypt. To get into the room, you had to follow what felt like a twisty path through dank concrete hallways, which opened up into a vast space that was lit like a haunted house, which is to say that it was barely lit at all. It was so hot in there that I almost couldn't move. Someone put an office-style water cooler at the back of the room, and god bless that person. Every time I stepped outside between bands, the fresh air tasted like a divine blessing.The room felt evil, and so did the bands on the bill. Detroit's Never Ending Game, for instance, are basically a perfect hardcore band. They play heavy-ass riffs with an unbelievable bounce, their frontman sounds like he eats entire ashtrays at brunch, and they bring the kind of breakdowns that make you want to grab a condor out of the sky and give it a hurricane DDT. NEG's connection to Division Of Mind runs deep; they played that last record release show in early 2020, too. Richmond understands Never Ending Game, and they understand Richmond. (At the merch table, they had Avail parody shirts, except with "poor ugly unhappy" across the back.) Their sound is so brutally satisfying on an instinctive gut level, and they were just awesome.On record, Final Resting Place, the one band on the bill I'd never seen before, are too much for me. They're at the top of the current wave of hardcore bands that really make brutal death metal, and their records are abrasive and alienating to the point where I really just can't get on board. I generally like visceral music, but the pig-squeal vocals, the murky guitars, and the snare that feels like a steel rod tapping my skull are just too much. Those are intentional choices on the band's part, of course. It's supposed to stress you out. In person, especially in a place like that dark basement, those recording choices no longer matter, and the sheer ugliness of the riffage achieves a certain majesty. I still probably won't put their records on anytime soon, but I was impressed.Sin Against Sin, on the other hand, make exactly the kind of abrasive mosh music that I like. On paper, they're not really all that different from Final Resting Place, with their extreme heaviness and their oops-all-breakdowns sensibility. But Sin Against Sin's flavor of heaviness is different. It's not really death metal. Instead, it's dialed into past generations of metalcore, with two different lead singers and guitars tuned lower than I might've thought possible. Their music seemingly exists only to make people move around in violent ways. I feel like I'm in danger even when I'm listening to them alone at home. They're still a new band, with two demos and about one year in the game. But if they keep moving people the way they moved people in Richmond, they will soon cause havoc on a much wider scale. I can't wait.Division Of Mind frontman Zachary Acosta-Lewis always makes inspiring speeches during the band's sets. At the record-release show, his best between-songs moment was when he talked about the new wave of young Richmond bands that, as he sees it, are ready to take the reins from the older generation that includes DOM. One of the bands that he mentioned was Lose Sight, the first act on the bill, and I can only echo what he said. Lose Sight's sound is classic straight-edge singalong material; they were they only band that night without much metal on their attack. They're kids. I first saw Lose Sight just a few months ago, on another bill that DOM headlined, and they've gained a scary amount of swagger in just that amount of time. Now, their singer wears sunglasses inside, even when he's playing the darkest room in the world, and mobs of people yell his lyrics into the mic with him. Just like Sin Against Sin, Lose Sight are going places.I'm writing this column just before the annual Sound And Fury festival comes to Los Angeles. It's the biggest weekend in hardcore every year. I've never been to Sound And Fury. Would love to go. Need to go one of these years. Sound And Fury is a beautiful spectacle because it displays the friendliest, most big-tent version of DIY hardcore, the version that can encompass both Saves The Day and Obituary. I would love to be in that pit, and my general impression is that anyone with even the barest interest in the music could go to the fest and have a great time. Division Of Mind's record release show wasn't ultimately that different from Sound And Fury, and the two bills shared a couple of bands. But what I saw in Richmond that night was not the big-tent version of hardcore. It was not friendly. It was dark and mean and combustible, and that was what was inspiring about it.Alienator - "Brutal Occupation"Portland's Alienator make things simple for you. That doesn't mean they make things easy. They don't. Their music is fast and dirty and profoundly ugly. But if you've ever worn a heavy link chain as a fashion accessory, one that wasn't manufactured to be a fashion accessory, then you understand this music. It resonates deep in your soul. Until someone actually trains feral raccoons to cover Discharge, this is the best we're going to do. [From Brutal Occupation EP, out now on Black Water.]Crazy Clue - "Broken Spirit"Fucked Up's music has drifted very, very far into the progged-out experimental ether over the years, and I think that's awesome. I can put on any of their hour-long Chinese Zodiac songs and have a great time, even if I don't remember any of the parts when it's over. But it's beautiful to hear a couple of Fucked Up members locking in and making some fast, nasty '80s-style basement punk again, even when it only takes conceptual side-project form. Mike Haliechuk and Jonah Falco are incredibly good at making twitchy new wave power-pop when they're doing Jade Hairpins, but they're probably even better at this kind of wild-eyed sprint. [From Where The Dregs Dwell, out now on Beach Impediment.]Discontent - "Human Emergence"Discontent revel in the same urgh-splat death metal brutality as Final Resting Place, and the two bands share at least one member in guitarist Mike Marino. But there's a little more grandeur in Discontent's approach, which brings a sense of sweep and showmanship to the party. It's still commendably gross, though. "Human Emergence" is a demented epic, a cinematic journey to the center of someone's collapsing spleen. [From Poised For Human Emergence EP, out now on Streets Of Hate.]Judiciary - "Wall Of Skulls"How would you build a wall of skulls, anyway? Seems like it would be difficult. Skulls are too rounded to balance on top of each other very well. There's a lot of variance in size and shape, too. Maybe you'd have to just build a regular wall as the base and then arrange the skulls up and down that wall. In the 28 Years Later Bone Temple, the skull-spire monuments make structural sense, especially since we see how Ralph Fiennes puts those bad boys together. A wall, though? That seems more complicated. And if you did build a wall of skulls, you would have to avoid playing this song, at least while I'm around. Because I'd hear those thrashed-out riffs and run right through your skull-wall like I was the Juggernaut. I'd be picking up loose chunks of skull, bashing them together, grinding them up with my teeth. By the time that didgeridoo (or whatever) hits, your wall would be reduced to atoms, and you'd have to start building a whole new one. It seems like a real shame to have a wall of skulls and not be able to listen to "Wall Of Skulls," doesn't it? The lesson here is: I ruin everything. [From Stalagmite Angels EP, out 9/4 on Closed Casket Activities.Man With Rope - "Terror Starts At Home"A couple of years ago, No Echo reported that this St. Louis band started when two guys met in a coffee shop — one wearing a His Hero Is Gone shirt, the other one showing off his Tragedy tattoo. That's beautiful. Things should start that way. People should put up little flags and find each other, and then they should get together and make vast, towering D-beat stadium crust anthems. [From Terror Starts At Home EP, out 9/4 on Another City.]Montclair - "Eyesight"Connecticut's Montclair claim to be post-hardcore, but that term can mean a lot of different things. In this case, it's pretty much just straight-up hardcore, with the chunky riffs and fast tempos and screamed vocals that the term implies, except with occasional melodic howling and dramatic whispering in there, too. Those flourishes never get in the way of all the anthemic force, so I don't feel the least bit shy about just calling them a hardcore band. It's a compliment. You can sing a little bit sometimes; it doesn't mean you're not tough. [From Eyesight EP, out 9/25 on New Morality Zine.]NØ MAN - "They Have Names"It's easy to joke about hardcore and its many associated mini-genres and umbrellas, with all their minute deviations and codes and rituals and clichés. But the reason that the music exists, the reason that it grew all these subcultural associations in the first place, is that it has the power to express real direct, fervid, overwhelming emotion, and "They Have Names" puts that power on full display here. Maha Shami, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, roars and growls and screams about her people being murdered and then erased, treated as if they never existed at all. When the song hits its goosebump-inducing peak, Shami bellows one phrase a few times: "We were always gonna save ourselves!" And then there's an extended coda in which people recite the names of friends and family who have been killed in the Israeli occupation. I usually mean something else when I use the term "heavy" in this column, but there's nothing heavier than this. [From Between The Sword And The Neck, out 10/1 on Iodine Recording.]Pain Of Truth - "Stranded"I can't lie: "Unforgiven," the lead single from Pain Of Truth's second album, had me a little worried. It just sounded professional. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but the sharpness and melody seemed to smother the towering attitude that Pain Of Truth brought to their first few records and their debut LP. I didn't need to worry. Those clean, sharp lines are still there, and you can tell that this is a band that exclusively plays big rooms now. This time, though, it's clean and sharp like the taste of blood in your mouth. Pain Of Truth play those big rooms now because nobody else is making towering knucklehead anthems quite like them today, and this is one for the pantheon. When I play "Unforgiven" after this, it goes way crazier, and I wonder why I was ever the least bit skeptical in the first place. [From Pain Of Truth, out 9/25 on DAZE.]Rat Cage - "Steady On Now"The mohawk is ruined. It's played out. If you see someone with a mohawk now, there is absolutely zero guarantee that they are even the tiniest bit punk. It's fine, honestly. Cultures and styles are supposed to change. In a way, it's pretty amazing that the mohawk held on for as long as it did. For maybe 20 years, movie casting directors could throw an extra with a mowhawk into a scene, and it could serve as a visual shorthand for something. They can't do that anymore. They have to cast extras with face tattoos instead. It's fine. The only sad part is that certain songs really should be heard in rooms full of stinky-ass people with gravity-defying hawks. This is one of them. [From Not Asking For Much, out 8/28 on La Vida Es Un Mus Discos.]Self Defense Family - "Reclusion"Drug Church have been around for just about forever, and Patrick Kindlon fully understands how to use that band's big, bright grooves as vehicles for his fatalistic gallows humor. He's the best at it. But Self Defense Family, the loose collective that's really basically a Kindlon solo project, can sometimes express that same sensibility without the seen-it-all smirk or the catchy riffage — all gallows, no humor. With this, this first song in years, Self Defense Family work up the Lungfish-style splintered, psychedelic infinite-repeat guitar sound that Kindlon loves so much, and he uses it to beg the world to leave him and his wife alone, thank you very much. [Stand-alone single, out now on Run For Cover.]