Broken Bones

Fuck You and All You Stand For [12-inch] (2011)

GlassPipeMurder

Broken Bones, like the previously reviewed Varukers, are another band heavily influenced by Discharge and their brand of UK D-beat hardcore punk. However, Broken Bones came several years after the initial UK82 wave, and are quite a bit more slanted in a dense, noisy, crossover thrash approach.

Fuck You and All You Stand For is the first full-length by Broken Bones since 2004's Time for Anger, Not Justice, itself a return to the band's hardcore punk early years after a more metal-oriented reunion record Without Conscience.

The band wastes no time launching into the Wall of Sound thrash, replete with machine gun distorted palm mutes, hammering bass kicks, and vocalist Craig "Quiv" Allen shouting above it all.

From the cover art to the lyrics, there's the standard fair amount of generics that plagues hardcore street punk and D-beat. Songs like "Minimum Wage", "Hell Is for Heroes" and "Torture" could be from any similar band, though there's a strange anomaly with some of the lyrics reflecting more the right than a leftist political view. "Stop ‘Em Now" is a xenophobic alarm about "Third-world countries / producing nuclear bombs" because "If we do fuck-all now / Then they will bomb us for fun." "Brainwashed" seems to take aim at fundamentalist Muslims ("If you wanna be a martyr / then go blow up the west") while "Downfall" actually decries anarchy and the "Gangs of hoodies walking the streets." Meanwhile, "Persecution" takes an admirable aim at religious persecution, though the front cover shows a cross being smashed. Hmm.

In the end, there's too many conflicting messages to make much sense of Fuck You and All You Stand For. Broken Bones put on a capable display of thrashy UK82 hardcore punk, but it's been done to death, making it even harder for this to stand out.

Fuck You and All You Stand For was initially released on compact disc by Dembones Recordings in July 2010.