Artist: War Effort
Title: Path to Glory
Release: EP / Digital
Year: 2023
Label: Warthog Speak Records
War Effort vocalist Bill Molloy and drummer Dave Fortunato are well known in the Chicago hardcore punk scene from their time in Warrior Tribes, who released some killer punk music over the years. Much like Warrior Tribes, this new band delivers barbed-wire-wrapped hardcore punk with plenty of distortion and reckless abandon, though War Effort incorporates a host of Discharge and Swedish kängpunk influences, while the Tribes emulated the classic US hardcore sound of bands like Battalion of Saints and Articles of Faith. Fortunato and War Effort guitarist Ian Wise are also currently playing in the phenomenal Lost Legion, but that’s a story for another review.
War Effort burst onto the scene exactly one year ago with a demo tape that was supposedly written and recorded in just one day. The band stated that it was an experiment to write and record a hardcore EP in 24 hours, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise, as I remember Felix von Havoc writing in a column for MRR about Shitlickers that their music had an urgent feel to it, conjuring up an image of the band breaking into a studio in the middle of the night and recording in twenty minutes, then splitting before the cops showed up. Truth or myth, it’s been the essence of the genre from day one, that the music should stay raw and instinctual enough that you don’t want to overcomplicate or overdo things.
Much like the demo, War Effort’s six new tracks provide some much-needed adrenaline as the world gets more fucked up by the day. I don’t know if Path to Glory was also written in a single day, but it’s the band’s first vinyl release and it’s still a damn good EP if you’re into hardcore with a more rugged and rough approach to songwriting. The entire EP sizzles with hardcore intensity, with only the title track clocking in at more than two minutes. One thing to note is that while the style of charging guitars, rip-roaring vocals, and pounding d-beats sticks to the core strengths of Swedish hardcore, there’s a definite burlier, American hardcore sound going on here that’s reminiscent of modern bands like Bootlicker, Armor, and Protocol. Kudos to War Effort for keeping the in-your-face hardcore sound alive and well.
