Blast Worship: Regional Justice Center

Where they from?
Seattle, WA. According to a Bandcamp write-up from 2018, Regional Justice Center‘s frontman moved from Seattle to L.A. in 2018 in hopes of being able to tour more. How quaint it feels to read an article from three years ago and be like “LOL, remember touring?” Also, shout-out Seattle Kraken, not a huge fan of the name but those uniforms are NICE. Can’t wait for them to beat the Rangers twice a year.

Why the hype?
I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF THIS BAND WHEN I NOTICED THHEY WOULD CONSTANTLY SHITPOST ON TWITTER WHILE USING ALL CAPS. A BOLD STRATEGY. After following them and occasionally liking a few of their tweets I eventually checked out the music and, it was pretty good! It’s basically an excellent example of that new wave of bands who straddle the line between hardcore and powerviolence but something about Regional stands out a bit more than their contemporaries. Every note is just soaked in punk rock snot and real world anguish, like the perfect modern re-imagining of what made bands like Infest so great back in their heyday.

Latest release?
Crime and Punishment. OK, look at that fucking album cover. That is an absolute piece of art, it’s like a production still from The Dark Knight, truly a thing of beauty. Secondly, this record is great! Tons of whiney chromatic punk riffage inter-spliced with some of the most goonish breakdowns standard tuning can get you. The main riff in “Inhuman Joy” makes me want to strap on a fanny pack and punch the ground like a gorilla while the seesaw back and forth of “Sickness on Display” makes me want to grab a hammer and just start attacking people. Real powerviolence gets people fucking AMPED for home improvement.