Another Wall 7" (1993)

Over the summer I was out having some drinks with my friend Joe at a bar we lovingly call "The Shithole". We met up with some of Joes friends and somehow got onto the topic of hardcore. I believe it began with a discussion about the book Radio Silence coming out soon and Joe mentioned that I did this blog and Glenn got excited saying he reads the blog frequently. I found this awkward as I had never randomly met anyone that read this page and as it turns I got the chance to be excited when Glenn mentioned he used to play drums in a band called Another Wall.

Well shheeeeit! I loved the Another Wall 7", one of the many things I sold, and had recently been on the lookout for so I could relive the glory days of blasting it in my shitty Honda. So Glenn and I ended up having much more than a passing discussion and the result was that Glenn wanted to get me the DATs of Another Wall stuff so I could post it up here. That was agreeable to me, especially if it sounded as good as I remember.

During a hilarious weekend retreat a few months later Glenn produced the converted files of the 7" plus an extra song that was never released. Radio Silence had just come out and we all geeked out to it and put the book to good use. It had seriously been years... more than a decade since I last heard these songs so when I got home I eagerly tossed it on and was surprised to hear that from the first note I recognized every single bit.

Another Wall could be fit into the progressive sort of hardcore scene alongside Quicksand and Burn, but they also didnt really sound like anyone else. Glenn thinks some of the guitars have some of Greg Ginns more experimental qualities, which I think is pretty spot on, especially on the unreleased song, Not A Word. The first thing you'll notice is the metallic leads followed by huge drums. The groove lays thick on this business and the two guitars throw loose yet chunky, stop-start metal riffs all over each other. Drum fills and rumbling low end dominate a good portion of this hybrid metal progressive hardcore beast as well, giving you plenty of room to do your windmills. The vocals are in a kind of spoken sort of singing style that seemed somewhat popular in NYHC at the turn of the decade. I guess I am thinking of Chaka's vocals on the Burn EP, but there is some actual singing too and some pretty good singalong parts to go along with some of the moshier stuff. This is definitely a record you could you could go off to. Despite it not being like Earth Crisis or that scene it definitely has riffs to match the chunkiness of a band like that albeit with a lot more texture to the guitars and a lot less anger in the vocals. All in all a very creative and interesting take on hardcore of that time period that I have yet to see replicated.



The unreleased song is actually the best of the four here. The other three are pretty great too, though Globe was always a personal favorite back in the Honda days. Some of the band members went on to do other awesome musical projects as well. Glenn went on to play in the band Antarctica along with Eric from Christie Front Drive. If you havent heard that stuff yet than it behooves me to tell you to get on that right now. Brian Maryansky, who is actually Glenns brother went on to play in The Van Pelt with the bassist Sean Greene. That is another thing you should really check out. And Chris Traynor later played in the similarly minded Orange 9mm. I am not sure what Luke (voice) does these days, though I feel like Glenn said Luke is a photographer. Luke and Glenn also contributed to the Radio Silence book as well and Glenn currently plays drums for the band Blacklist, who play a dark sort of rock and roll that has a nice Chameleons UK feel to it.

Blacklist is the only band that is active from the Another Wall family tree and you can check them out on their page.





I am going to try to keep up with this page and hopefully get at least one post a week out. Thats not too much to ask of myself. I had gotten very lazy after my last set of deadlines and it should be noted that Xbox is partially to blame.

Thanks to all of you who kept checking back despite my absence. Keep visiting as I have no intentions of closing up shop yet.

Peace!