ON

As most people know every time one band in hardcore calls it day and breaks up the following year a new band begins comprised of that band and other bands. Well ON is a perfect example of this stereotype in hardcore that creates in bands. When I first saw them name I was thinking this may be a Failure influenced band but I was totally wrong, it's the complete opposite but this isn't a band thing. Lately I have been killing tons of new bands and demos and these guys caught my attention. I'm not a big youth crew fan minus Judge and Side Bye Side and some of the late 90's bands like In My Eyes/Ten Yard Fight/Better Than A Thousand, but these guys keep this stuff interesting.

ON is based out of Seattle, WA and is put together by ex-members of Go It Alone, Get The Most, Lights Out, Champion, and Blue Monday. I honestly was never a huge fan of Champion, I liked the music and they where awesome to watch live but the records always bored me but ON has more of a Blue Monday sound over anything Champion really did. This band seems to grab me a lot more then Champion did musically. It still has a very early 90's NYC Youth crew vibe but it's written with a lot more creativity and song structure then a lot of bands. After hearing the demo I can definitely tell these dudes love Better Than A Thousand because the vocals and at times vocals patterns have a big Ray Cappa influence, but in the good way and not the annoying Youth of Today vocal style. Sorry folks shoot me for saying this but I never got into Youth of Today and to this day I still don't. ON has your basic fast traditional hardcore sound with fast punk riffage and constant circle pit parts but they seem to pull of a sound that is a little more catchy than their old counter parts Go it alone and Champion, and I assume it's because of the vocal style and the intelligent punk chords that bring to like In My Eyes and Better than A Thousand songs. I love a few of their bass lines which are solid,smooth, and catchy as hell. I think I'm the only person who focuses on the bass guitar a lot when listening to bands the stuff really stands out to me if a band can add in some bass playing that just doesn't back up the guitar and ON's stick out to me.

Is ON an original hardcore band? Maybe not but they sure do this style a lot better than the half of million bands out there doing this or have done in the post. With time and a little more progression ON may turn out to be bigger and better than their past counter part Champion. Hopefully they will stick to this and do a little touring because I would love too them live. Check out the demo...


ON- Vital Times Demo
Tracklist:
1. Generations
2. Silence Inside
3. Take a Stand
4. Vital Times

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