Ever play the “judge a band by its name” game? I’ve been doing this since I really got into underground music, way back when, and I think I’ve become fairly adept in terms of my guessing skills. For every band I’m wrong on, there’s a band like Murder Weapon. This EP didn’t even need to come with a press release, I knew what I was getting into from the moment I saw the front cover,

Murder Weapon is a hardcore band out of Richmond, Virginia; they play a mix of old school and modern hardcore. I’d be lying to you if I said this was groundbreaking or amazingly original in any way, but when a band is good at what they do that doesn’t really hinder them. This short EP seems to be heavily influenced by New York style hardcore. For a band that isn’t from the area, Murder Weapon pulls this style off rather well. So well in fact, that at times I’m even reminded a little of Sick of it All. They also have some similarities to the older material of fellow “We aren’t from New York, but we wish we were” band Where Fear And Weapons Meet.

As I said earlier, this thing is short; it flies by in around 10 minutes (7 songs). But I think that’s a good thing for bands like this, considering there isn’t a whole lot of variation here, going for longer songs would risk losing the listener’s attention. The lyrics are basically what you’d expect, mainly dealing with things such as lost friendships. “Just face it, you’re faceless, our time spent was wasted, you’re not a friend, just a foe.” It’s not thought provoking, it isn’t deep, but that won’t stop it from inspiring lots of finger pointing and shouting at shows.

This is just what you’d expect from a hardcore band. Everything is how it should, there’s a place for everything and everything in its place, etc. but that doesn’t make this a poor a release. Fans of hardcore, new or old are probably going to dig this one. I can imagine that this stuff would work really well live, as all the songs have a sort of sing-a-long atmosphere to them. Even as everything is divided into a million genres and categorized ad-nauseam, Murder Weapon can easily be called hardcore and that’s it.