by Kurt Orzeck
There’s a common misperception that hardcore bands are unreliable, burn bright for a bit, and then fade away. Or maybe there isn’t. After all, I’m just some dude. Whatever the case, Portland’s Alienator appear to have made it a point to not alienate their fans by putting out an EP or LP every year since 2023 (and a demo the year before that). Their allegiance to routine is only outmatched by their devotion to delivering hardcore distilled to its very essence. We’re talking short-and-sharp songs that don’t dare cross the 2:45 mark, which means the members of the band who aren’t the vocalist have the capacity to hold their breath over the duration of every song the band plays.
Alienator also carry the hardcore torch by saturating each of their numbers with irreversible negativity and anti-social sentiment (hence their “Alien-ate” moniker). Songs from their back catalog like “I Don’t Give a Fuck,” “You’re Nothing,” “Social Disease,” “I’m Nothing,” and “Time to Die” do a pretty good job summing up the band’s worldview. Music journalists/critics like yours truly tend to want to ascribe some type of evolutionary process to the catalog of releases issued by every artist we cover. That simply isn’t the case here. On Brutal Occupation, Alienator sounds basically the same as they did when the Portland band formed some four years ago. It’s even more important to recognize that ain’t a bad thing; in fact, when it comes to hardcore, staying tried-and-true to the genre’s ethos — never compromising, always resisting, remaining steadfast and loyal to the cause — is the end-all, be-all.
In that respect, it’s not a negative that Brutal Occupation is another Alienator EP with four strong songs. It’s actually the highest compliment that can be paid to a band that has been unwaveringly devoted to hardcore since day one — and, for our money, will probably adhere to that philosophy until their final day as a band. The word “authenticity” gets bandied about way too often these days, because it’s misused nine times out of ten. Alienator’s Brutal Occupation is what authenticity really sounds like.