by Jare C (@jareccurtis)
In the world of Buffalo punk and hardcore, things have certainly been heating up over the past year. With labels like Swimming Faith and Feral Kid Records keeping the scene fed with plenty of new releases, DIY venues opening up with healthy support, and new bands springing up left and right, its a really good time to be a scene kid in Buffalo right now. At the center of all of the action and noise is SPACED, a five-piece “far-out” hardcore outfit that has been holding it down with blisteringly fast riffs, stellar vocals, and proactively meaningful lyrics. The band’s demo dropped just three years ago, and in that time they’ve amassed a strong following both at home and away. On their latest release, This Is All We Ever Get, the band doubles down on everything that’s made them stand out in a sea of similarly full-throttle HXC bands, by cranking up the noise, the energy, the hooks, and the lyrics.
Clocking in at just fifteen minutes across eight tracks, SPACED wastes no time launching into the heart of the record with “Landslide,” a speedy banger of a hardcore song whose breakdown could open a pit amongst even the most timid crowd. The album proceeds into “Big Picture,” a thunderous charge that laments the way in which post-industrial colonialism and capitalism removes someones individual identity while refusing their ability to make choices that defy the social order. The gang vocals throughout surround the listener and Lexi Reyngoudt’s earth-shattering voice does a remarkably effective job of cutting through the soundscape created by the rest of the track. Throughout a chant echoing through the listener, Reyngoudt shouts, “How does it feel to know your world is spinning out of control? / Looking at the big picture it’s trivial it’s meaningless. /Try to make something better, but this is all we ever get.”
Other highlights among this highway charge of a record include “AIATB,” an almost lo-fi, psychedelic beat of a palette cleanser that opens up the barn burner “Rat Race” in a truly remarkable way. A song that mirrors a more traditional hardcore circle-pit runner, Reyngoudt and company offer tempo changeups and guitar licks so highflying they would would bring a tear to any prog-rock believer's eye. The track ultimately opens the way for a final charge for class warfare - of the oppressor versus the oppressed, as Reyngoudt pushes forward, “I need some clarity / how did sincerity become a rarity? To you integrity is the enemy / that’s why you’re up against me / Us / against you/ that’s what it boils down to.”
On each track of This Is All We Ever Get, SPACED seems to be adding another line to their mission statement. There’s a sincerity to the instrumentation and vocals that indicate that the band is striving for something bigger and better than what they have right now. Within that, there’s an eagerness to experiment with what hardcore can sound like, blending in elements of psych rock, punk, prog rock, emo, and heavy metal that all add to a great sense of world within this record, and the anthemic quality of each track is incredibly accessible to any incoming fan. With this album, SPACED seems to fully grapple with who they want to be as a band, and that confidence rubs off on the listener as a strong sense of empowerment. Hopefully, this isn’t all we’ll ever get from SPACED because what they’re doing right now has incredible space to grow.