SEMI-CLASSIC CASSETTE REVIEW: Police Beat “Demo 2002”

                When I moved from Houston back to Connecticut, I had my music all put together in the same place and have only really been slowly picking at it and really have yet to get shelves or something to put it in because of time mostly.   So as I begin to organize and spring clean, if you will, I came across an old box of cassette tapes I had back before I even moved to Texas and this is going to be the first of those reviews as part of what will now be dubbed “The Semi-Classic Cassette Reviews” because they’re mostly from the early ’00’s, so not the original run of cassettes but still old enough.

                I’m not entirely certain how I came about this cassette.  When I was reviewing music previously, I wasn’t reviewing tapes at all but it didn’t stop me from buying some when I saw them from an artist I really enjoyed.   But those will come later on in this series.    This tape was most certainly sent to me by someone for free and I don’t know who or why.   Most likely, it came with a CD of some other band because I don’t own any other Police Beat music but trying to trace it could be damn near impossible.

                In any event, Police Beat deliver six fast paced hardcore songs that have screamed vocals along the lines of Bane or Skarhead.  It just reminds me a lot of the bands that were coming out of the Boston area at that time and how good they were back then.  There was really a special scene back then and I don’t know if it will ever be recreated just because of the bands, the labels and everything.

                While trying to research this cassette (aka a Google search) I came across the website plugged inside of here (www.howsyouredge.com) and even though the Police Beat extension no longer seems to exist, there are still pages up of people who have music to sell though I don’t feel like it’s been updated recently.   It’s funny though because one person who has (had) this tape for sale also has (had) a Bane demo tape which I now want to scour the internet to find.  

                This is good stuff in that hardcore punk but mostly hardcore vibe.  I have no idea how I got it and you can definitely only get it now second hand if at all.  I feel like it should be in some hardcore museum or something, or maybe if one of the former band members out there loves cassettes now and didn’t save a copy back then it should be in their collection.