(REFUSE+UPSTARTZ) SCHWACH has been around for almost ten years now. In hardcore years that’s at least sixty: time to retire, or not? Six years after the first LP, “Kein Bock”, and over two years since the last sign of life the band now releases their second album, “Kälter”.In the album’s twelve songs, SCHWACH talks about the attempt to remain true to oneself and critical of the prevailing conditions in a diverse and multi-layered way. The songs deal with political rage as well as personal loss and the strength it can give you when you feel that you are not alone: others feel the same way and are fighting in the same struggles. Be they on the barricades, on a stage, or in front of it. “Punk is still the coolest thing,” it says in “Three Chords,” the last song of the LP. But punk is more than just that. Punk, as SCHWACH lives it, is also a necessary corrective against the shittiness of the world and a charging cable for the battery of individual resistance.The music is exactly what hardcore should be today if it wants to be more than cliché-ridden classic rock. At its core SCHWACH still plays nothing less than extremely pissed off youth crew hardcore. But around this core, the band builds something that goes far beyond the boundaries of standard hardcore. There are mid-tempo songs, guest vocals and repeatedly genre-atypical sound colors.
