In the ripping hardcore scene that has recently cropped up in Pittsburgh surrounding bands like Living World, White Stains and Necro Heads comes Speed Plans; a writhing, drug fueled, violence machine of manic hardcore in the vein of Repos or Ripcord. When we were first contacting Speed Plans on account of their absolutely raging cassette output, they mentioned wanting to do an LP that was "15 fast ones and 1 slow one." We were sold right then and there. If mean, fast, low-fi and low brow is what you're after then look no further, you've arrived.

500 copies on 150gr black vinyl housed in a 24pt reverse board jacket with lyric insert included. Recorded at Clean Living Audio. Mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air.


Our take: We’ve carried several releases from Pittsburgh’s Speed Plans over the past few years, but if you haven’t checked them out until now, you’ve arrived to the party just in time. Statues of God is the record you want. I keep seeing the Repos’ name thrown around in relation to this record. Admittedly, that didn’t occur to me right off the bat… instead, I heard similarities to 80s bands like Negative FX, early Agnostic Front, and Youth of Today. But now that I think about it, this sounds a lot like the Repos. Which is to say they sound like the 80s bands I mentioned, but touches like the harmonized guitar leads in “Cleveland” could be deliberate homages to the Repos. I fucking love the Repos (I think I have every single one of their records, which is no mean feat) and I love this, but I don’t think you need to love the Repos in order to love Speed Plans. It’s just a raw, rampaging, nihilistic hardcore punk record, and even though I’ve been listening to this stuff for decades, it still sounds fresh and urgent to me. Maybe that’s because I’m boring or that my tastes aren’t that adventurous, but I prefer to think it’s because Speed Plans is just that good.