Ripping fast, raw Deep Wound-esque hardcore!

Our take: This Canadian group delivers three minutes of top-shelf hardcore on this frustratingly short demo. Blood Ties owes a big debt to early Agnostic Front, particularly the way they disregard conventional hardcore song structures. See, for instance, the 22-second “Lemmings,” which starts with a dramatic four-bar intro, goes into a ripping fast hardcore part for four more bars, then plays one bar of the intro again and stops. Then there’s the longer “Poser” (47 seconds), which has a breakdown that’s longer than the “main” part of the song. The epic closer (one minute, twenty-nine seconds) “Where Am I?” is more of a fist-pumper a la AF’s “Power,” but Blood Ties still makes time for a gnarly breakdown. Just like United Blood or Victim Pain, this is the musical equivalent of being jumped into a gang. Leave your library card at home, because this is for the cavemen, neanderthals, and other primitive human species.