Not For The Weak is proud to bring forth the debut demo cassette from Richmond, Virginia’s SPORE. Rabid Intent is 8 tracks of politically driven hardcore punishment, with every intent of starting a full on revolt. A perfect concoction of raw punk rooted in the Swedish realm of chaos. The music is thick and brutally punishing as expected, but the atmospheric reverb effect on the vocal adds a cool element to the mix. While listening to this tape, images of a slammed out kitchen or basement with nonstop fist-pumping can’t help but creep into my mind. Probably the future reality for this Richmond outfit.


Our take: Not for the Weak Records brings us this gloriously noisy and crushing cassette from Richmond, Virginia’s Spore. I can hear a whole lineage of hardcore punk in Spore’s music… they sound like an American hardcore band influenced by noisy Japanese punk bands from the 2000s inspired by Swedish bands from the 80s who were stealing from the playbook Discharge first drafted. It’s fists-in-the-air, bruising shit, fast and heavy as fuck with no letup. My favorite parts are when the guitarist drops the riff and dissolves into a D-Clone-esque squall of inchoate distortion… most of Spore’s music winds me up, ratcheting up the intensity until I feel the anxiety in my body, then when the guitarist makes that move, it’s like being in the middle of a panic attack and screaming at the top of your lungs, shutting out the world and providing an essential moment of cathartic relief. As with everything on Not for the Weak, the sound is massive and bruising, and with eight tracks and eye-catching artwork, I don’t see anyone complaining they didn’t get their money’s worth out of this one. Totally killer.