Is there a better unintentionally-appropriate name for a hardcore venue than “Bonk’s”? This “crabhouse and bar” is located on the corner between nothing and jack-shit in a well-littered commercial area just off I-95. The closest business is an auto-body shop that blares a looped female-voice recording when you hit the motion sensor: “this area is monitored by video”. The Bonk’s folks rent out the back enclosed patio area for private parties, a deal of which intrepid hardcore youths have taken advantage for all-ages hardcore and punk shows that probably cap out at around a hundred or so. On a Monday night immediately following a weekend-long hardcore fest in the same city (Breakdown, Underdog and Killing Time headlined), some kids remained insatiable, and I was glad to be among them.

The scene was lively and congenial upon arrival, and I would like to confirm that I had a crew of my own: three lifelong buddies / bandmates / ex-bandmates. If we were ten years younger, we still would’ve been the oldest guys in the room. I know how we got there – we drove – but the why we went remains a bit of a mystery, as none of these bands were a must-see for any of us. I think the most straight-edge guy in my crew (all three are edge but he’s the most by far) really wanted to see Life Force, as he had custom-ordered a straight-edge varsity jacket made by the singer. Before we knew it, we were eating delicious deep-fried vegan food at the weed-themed (but confusingly, not weed-infused) restaurant Blazerz Food Joint before heading over.

First up was Skives, whose name rhymes with “knives” and isn’t a misspelled old-timey term for underwear. Clad in all black except for the drummer (drummers are always the last to get the fashion memo), they rolled through their set of lengthy metallic hardcore-crust songs. Each song was stuffed with parts, from solemn intros to ugly half-time beat-downs to epic crust gallops… any sort of typical blackened metal/core influence was grist for their mill. Why they needed to stuff all of these parts into five-minute long epics instead of breaking them down into smaller songs, I do not know, but I appreciate that they came with their own perspective. Vocalist JL had a raspy sneer that reminded me of Stephanie McMahon when she would scream, and they kind of look similar to each other, too. I was pleased to learn that Skives are from the Lehigh Valley, which is also where I tend to claim as being from. I will keep an eye out for them the next time I visit my parents.

Up next we have God Instinct, repping Philadelphia hardcore, the first of the three bands bearing the New Age Records banner (yep, the very same New Age Records from the mid ’90s). While Skives received some modest, obligatory hardcore dancing, the room erupted for these local faves. The X’ed-up sound guy repeatedly ran into the pit, leaving his post to dance hard, and then would scamper back to the mixing board to play God Instinct’s interstitial atmospheric soundscapes. That’s called hardcore dedication! The singer wore a sick, beat-to-hell Words To Live By Words To Die For hoodie, which beat out the door-guy’s Shady Maple Smorgasbord hoodie by a hair as best of the evening. God Instinct’s hardcore was energetic and moshy, but not in an overtly tough-guy way; I had heard murmurings that today’s hardcore youth are getting sick of the chugga-chug crowd-kill vibe, and are leaning in a faster, more posi, more “old school” direction, which I certainly appreciate. Even so, the dancing was mostly a mix of sideways crowd-slamming and silly arm-flailing “karate” moves, but I have reluctantly accepted such foolishness as the typical modern standard, especially as the vibes here were communal and friendly. I had not (and still haven’t) heard studio recordings from any of the bands who played, but my one friend confirmed that God Instinct are a touch more melodic on recordings (he mentioned both Tragedy and Good Riddance as touch-points, interestingly enough). I’m glad their sound was scuffed up by the raw in-room sound and modest PA capabilities, and that the singer’s few attempts at “singing” were drowned out by the live noise. Someone ordered fries from the bar during this set, and the delicious smell quickly filled the room and lingered there the rest of the evening. Alongside God Instinct’s animated performance, it was impossible to not be appetised one way or another.

Moral Law followed, hailing all the way from Denver and again part of New Age’s present-day crop. They were proudly “militant vegan straight-edge”, and while I am none of those three things, I found no aspect of their performance off-putting (though I still can’t tell if the show-goer in the “marijuana kills” t-shirt was wearing it seriously or ironically… thumbs up either way). They could’ve bantered a bit more, considering their militant stance and all, but the fully torso-tatted singer was content to leave brief intros like “this is a vegan song” at that. Moral Law were the most metallic outfit of the night, akin to late ’90s Earth Crisis or late ’90s Cave In with Left For Dead’s crude guitar tone, though unlike those two metal-core icons, this drummer occasionally struggled to keep up (as did, let’s be honest, literally every drummer of the evening). I’m used to this sort of music operating with a pro-gear / pro-tude presentation, so the scrappiness on display here, with pedal configurations that weren’t labored over and the occasional flub here or there, was appealing and relatable. A far superior metallic hardcore experience to the outlandish polish of August Burns Red, who I saw last year at a festival outside of Copenhagen, performing with zero amps on stage and an engineer controlling the direct-input mix via an iPad. I wasn’t even sure if Moral Law’s bassist knew how to tune it, which was how hardcore should be. And speaking of bassists, I spied the Disclose-shirt-wearing bassist of God Instinct devouring a big, chewy chocolate-chip cookie on the edge of the pit during Moral Law’s set. I can only assume it was vegan, so on second thought, maybe it wasn’t that good.

Finishing off the gig around ten PM, Texas’s Life Force (AKA Life Force (9) on Discogs) quickly set up on much of the same shared gear as the other three groups. The singer of God Instinct played bass and the singer of Moral War played guitar, a compacted scab lineup to help enable Moral Law and Life Force tour Europe together in April. Maybe Animal Collective should share members with Life Force for an easier European touring experience? Vocalist Flint Beard (best cis-masc name I’ve heard in a while) commanded the proceedings, a vocalist sure, but an excellent public speaker first and foremost. I think the last thing anyone really wants is to be preached at by yet another self-assured white guy, especially in this day and age, but I found his presence and words to be heartfelt and thoughtful, aware of his privilege and passionate yet appropriately humble. The band gave him plenty of space between songs to rant against injustice, imperialism, transphobia, genocide, and other glaring American inequalities in a way that, while not revelatory, felt good to hear coming from someone at a hardcore show filled with a small-yet-diverse crowd suffering from similar and different forms of oppression. I saw Infest play with four other hardcore bands a few days after Trump was elected the first time, and was a little stunned that none of the bands (not even DC’s Pure Disgust!) had a single thing to say about it on stage. Life Force’s music was typical speedy, youth-crew posi-core, complete with one of the sloppiest renditions of “True Til Death” I’ve ever witnessed (which was also surprisingly the only cover of the entire evening). Beard confidently brought us all in with him, and didn’t even seem to mind that his bandmates could barely play their instruments. May they thrive in Europe and be allowed safe passage back to this godforsaken country.

Before leaving the gig, my crew stopped by the merch table (set up outside the venue as there was simply no room for a folding table inside) and each one of us bought the same item: a New Age Records t-shirt based on one of Unity’s classic designs, inexplicably sold by Life Force for five bucks a pop. I tried to get us all to put them on and pose for a pic together in front of the big New Age Records banner, but my friends refused to match my level of shamelessness. Sure, this was some comicon-level behavior I was pushing for, but the fun, goofy, hardcore friendship solidarity was intensely pumping through my veins, alright?