MIDNIGHT BOMBERS - If you conceive of classic hardcore as fast, loud, and abrasive then you'll have to expand your definition to take in the rockin' punk metal of the MIDNIGHT BOMBERS. Yeah, they do faster and louder, but they're also quite melodic, vary their tempo, and even play a guitar solo or two. This short demo, with five songs clocking in under nine minutes, will take you back to the classic days of 80s Reagan core, with nods to MINOR THREAT, BLACK FLAG, and most of all the DEAD KENNEDYS. It's all about walking around the Bay area in the early 80s, bored and pissed off, and what should appear in front of you but a tattered flyer stapled to a telephone pole, advertising a gig by the sickly-named DEAD KENNEDYS! Sick, yes, but humorous too. Of course you go, ready to work off the angst with a bit of a pogo and maybe a lashing of the old ultra-violence, but all you can do is stand there, open-mouthed. Yeah, they're speedy as hell, but there's a surprising melodic sense, and the social satire is dead on. You go back to your roach closet of an apartment a changed man.... If anyone can remind you of those halcyon days two decades and more in the past, its the Midnight Bombers. The lyrics are about paranoia, hatred of work, and mental illness, with a dose of camp thrown in to keep things goofy. We may all be too old for this these days, but so what? Punk n' roll! - Kevin McHugh