Our take: This British Columbian band crams twelve tracks of primitive but hooky hardcore on their vinyl debut. Sonically, Self Defense is firmly grounded in the early Dischord / Touch & Go aesthetic, with songs primarily taking the form of 30- to 50-second blasts of aggro. One place Self Defense excels is in their arrangements. They have a Negative Approach-ish knack for doing these tightly executed drop-outs and trade-offs that make the songs really dynamic, and with twelve songs it’s great that they don’t repeat the same patterns over and over. As with the Betrayer demo we also looked at this week, the production has that perfect early 80s patina, though the vocals could have been allowed to shine a little more I think, as a charismatic performance could have really pushed this over the top. As it stands, though, this is a ripping slice of retro 80s hardcore punk.