Portland, Oregon’s Dry Socket have been around for a number of years now, earning greater attention with their early-2024 full-length, Sorry For Your Loss. The quartet’s scathing approach to melodic hardcore punk was a welcome sound and now they’re back after less than six months, armed with a new split with Mid-Atlantic hardcore crew Body Farm. It’s a certified rager and you can check it out below via Decibel.
Body Farm start things off, serving up 10 sample-heavy hardcore punk tracks that get straight to the point. Their songs are lean, with the samples as the only excess fat on each track. Lyrically, Body Farm address topics like gender, capitalism, trans rights and more. The samples break up the action but it’s easy to get into the short songs, especially their mosh parts.
“I want to make music that inspires spaces where people feel free to be their true selves, to question and challenge the current conditions we all live under, and to create community,” explains Body Farm vocalist Ocean, who adds that half of their side was written in a week leading up to recording, providing a specific snapshot of the band.
The record changes on track 11, Dry Socket’s “Sublex,” and it’s clear that the Oregon punks didn’t come to fuck around. The vast majority of the melody from Sorry For Your Loss is gone, replaced with in-your-face riffs and a feral snarl from vocalist Dani. On average, the songs are shorter and more potent than their last release, something the band is very aware of.
“Creating songs that capture relatable anger is so important to me,” Dani says. “So many of us have found safety by being small and quiet. I hope this record in particular helps people feel it’s OK to be loud, angry and seen.
“We keep jokingly referring to this record as our ‘hardcore’ record because it’s the most straightforward music and lyrics we have written. Sorry For Your Loss, our LP that came out in January of 2024, is a really emotional album with a lot of vulnerability and nuance. For this next release we were in a very different headspace and wanted to simplify. The lyrics of this split are more in your face, the music is heavier and easier to mosh to and the songs are fun, even if the content they are about isn’t. We hope that this still impacts people like our previous music, but maybe is a little easier to digest without having to dive deep emotionally. These songs are pissed and we can’t wait to share them with the world.”
If you like what you hear, you can score a copy of Body Farm and Dry Socket’s split via Blind Rage Records and King of the Monsters.
