Locked In
Walk The Plank

"Walk The Plank" is the debut LP under Hurry Up Records of a band that, if I had to use a metaphor, I could only describe as the Perugian Comeback Kid, a group of guys dedicated to hardcore/punk direct and without frills, full of those stereotypes so appreciated by genre enthusiasts, such as powerful choruses, background chants, breaks, and sudden accelerations.

Even though I don't particularly appreciate their "straight" and overly old school attitude (some are vegan, some are straight edge, some simply cover themselves in tattoos), as if it were an essential aspect for those who make this type of music, Locked In represents one of the few local realities capable of conveying something in a scene (the Italian one) that does nothing but fill its mouth with grandiose words in the face of much more modest results, and the album in question is a vivid example of this: despite the weak production and certainly not impressive performances of the group during recording, "Walk The Plank" succeeds where many of our albums (and others) have miserably failed, namely in content, offering a handful of inspired and anything but trivial songs, two above all, the hits "Astoria" and "Night Kills", two real classics of their repertoire. They may not be the new To Kill (great friends of the band and a cornerstone of Italian hardcore/metal worldwide) but both the musical and personal similarities with this latter formation promise a future no less interesting, if inspiration and consistency do not suddenly fail.

Maybe it's because I personally know the guys in the band (and I've even had the opportunity to play with them) but this is more than a review, it's an invitation to listen, even casually, to discover the only band with a future present in this no man's land. Then you, at DeBaser, know very well the pleasure of reviewing a practically unknown record!