Cassette Review: Tabor Mountain "Hard Magic" (Kerchow Records)

When I first started writing about music the idea of sending it through the Internet was not what it is now.   People generally had to submit music to me via compact disc.   Unfortunately for me, over the years I've lost a lot of the music submitted to me because of moving and the such.   I had this one CD that really did remind me of this cassette but I can't remember the artist and it's not something I could find online now anyway-- it was that sort of small run.

Tabor Mountain has this presence about them like a punk band or a rock band but also this dark, metal vibe with it.   Right away I hear grunge.   It's Butthole Surfers perhaps.   Deeper vocals come out like Marcy Playground.   It's a bit of Mudhoney as well.    The punk undertones combine with something from the late 1980's or early 1990's when rock was changing shape.   If you find a band from, well, the past twenty years and then find a song they cover it might likely be traced back to that sort of era.

That isn't to say they aren't without their fair share of catchy riffs, which make me think of a band like Ten Foot Pole or Jughead's Revenge (Who later had to change their name for legal reasons but whatever, I'm keeping it old school)   Dag Nasty brings out evidence of a hardcore punk vibe.   It's like something from early Epitaph and, well, there is just a huge emphasis on the spectacular guitar work on this cassette and that's the first thing that you should notice.   There is also this sort of Misfits vibe here and I'll say that their guitar work also reminds me of The Offspring.

With starts and stops this can become dark punk rock, even heavier at times when dark keys come in, but overall it just maintains that rocking quality.    It's not easy to describe because when I think about the formula put into this I just imagine it reading on paper as coming out more like The Misfits and it doesn't really sound like them so much as just have the same idea behind it all.    it is definitely unique since I've only ever heard one other band that even comes close to this in near twenty years and I'll be playing this a lot.

$5 // Edition of 50 // https://kerchowrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hard-magic