by Hugo Reyes (@hvreyes5)
San Jose is having a bit of a moment in hardcore. Gulch is already on their third pressing of Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress. Drain brought one of the best crossover hardcore records of the last year with California Cursed. Sunami has had a slew of releases, bringing a playfulness to ignorant beatdown, making some of the most stomp-able tracks of 2020.
It would only make sense that we would eventually have a collaboration between two of these bands, those bands being Gulch and Sunami, putting out a split on Triple B Records. The pairing is the perfect summation of where hardcore is at in 2021. Those divisions that existed in the 90’s look really stupid in retrospect. It's all just glorified caveman music at the end of the day. All the different iterations on the genre are welcomed and even more so encouraged now.
Sunami’s two tracks have all the trappings of metalcore, as evidenced on the slam dance ready opening track “Step Up”. It plays in that familiar low end guitar tone and shrieking vocals one would expect but has enough interesting diversions to warrant its sub-three minute runtime, throwing in the occasional blast beat for some variation. Of course they have their joking, almost satire, smack talk that is to be expected in any Sunami song at this point. There’s even a portion of the song that makes mention to the infamous Gulch hoodie.
Gulch’s side is much more of the no nonsense, death-metal indebted hardcore. Not a second is to be wasted. They’re picking up right where they left off less than a year after their breakout record, pushing themselves even further on the aptly named “Bolt Swallower,” sounding closer to labelmates Gatecreeper than a traditional hardcore band.
Instead of being a throwaway, this split serves as the essential next step for each group, building upon the work each brought in 2020. For Gulch, the two tracks are an addition to an already impressive discography. Sunami’s tracks build even more anticipation as to what a full length will actually look like for them in the future. Almost as important, the split keeps the hype intact in this weird era where hardcore only exists as a solitary experience. Without live shows, every release is critical and subject to more intense scrutiny. This one doesn’t disappoint, giving listeners an eleven minute jolt to make the mundane groundhog’s day existence we’re all experiencing a bit more bearable.