More than three decades after Flex Your Head came out, it finally feels that another moment is taking shape, thanks in part to a new D.C. hardcore compendium called The Red Line Comp.

Featuring 12 of the best and most interesting NWODCHC (New Wave Of D.C. Hardcore) bands active right now, the right time for a project like The Red Line Comp feels like it’s been bubbling up for the last 12 to 18 months. While annual D.C. hardcore festival Damaged City has helped put the spotlight on what is going on in D.C.’s contemporary hardcore scene, it’s the bands’ recordings that have made the biggest impact outside of D.C., with excellent releases from Protester, Public Suicide and Red Death, among others.

D.C. hardcore musician Ace Mendoza, who plays in a number of the bands featured on the release (Red Death, Stand Off, Jåvla, Pure Disgust) assembled The Red Line Comp. He says the collection’s timing was just a matter of circumstance. 

“Last year was mainly a demo year for a lot of these bands, so this year marks the beginning of the NWODCHC’s record debuts,” Mendoza writes via email. “Nine of the bands on the comp are putting out either a 7-inch or an LP, meaning a lot of [them] are also either starting extensive tours or playing out more in general.”

With bands like Red Death releasing a record on hardcore label Grave Mistake — which also released an LP from D.C. hardcore band Coke Bust in 2013 — and Pure Disgust putting out a 7-inch with Brooklyn’s Katorga Works, the comp feels not only vital today, but also potentially important years from now as a document of the scene, much like Flex Your Head.

Listening to The Red Line Comp, it isn’t hard to hear how diverse each band is: There’s the relatively straightforward hardcore of Public Suicide, the hard oi! of The Defense, the death metal sludge of Genocide Pact. What makes this recording sound essential is how high-impact each band is. You get the sense that all of them wanted to make a statement, and did.

But Mendoza didn’t necessarily aspire to put out a nouveau Flex Your Head. When asked what compilations influenced The Red Line Comp, Mendoza mentions two now-legendary New York hardcore compilations from 1989: Where The Wild Things Are and The New Breed, only citing Flex Your Head in passing. But with each track, The Red Line Comp writes a new chapter in D.C. hardcore history — a much-needed update to a story that many know by heart.

Gray complained to me on Twitter that our list had overlooked D.C. hardcore. So I asked him to make a list of his favorite local hardcore songs of the year — and he delivered that and more. If our list inflicted a wound on the D.C. hardcore community, I hope Gray’s contribution, below, helps heal it. —Ally Schweitzer

* * *

D.C. hardcore got a good bit of attention in 2014, especially from Bandwidth. I think that’s partly because of Damaged City Fest — the growing local festival of punk and hardcore scheduled to return in April — and also the scene’s quality: D.C. hardcore bands sounded excellent last year. But Bandwidth’s Best of 2014 list didn’t acknowledge any of it.

Before I get to my list of the year’s best D.C. hardcore, I want to say something first: It bums me out that the bands listed below are all-male. Right now DCHC seems stronger than it’s been in ages. Let’s hope in 2015 we see more women involved. This scene has the power to make a change for the better.

With that said, it’s hard to deny how many great releases came out of the local hardcore scene in 2014. That’s often how I’m hearing this music — through recordings, not live shows — because I have cerebral palsy and use a walker. Lots of hardcore shows happen in places that aren’t accessible to me.

That means I base my understanding and critique of new D.C. hardcore purely on the releases. Certainly, it makes for a different experience of the scene. But I can’t hear Misled Youth’s “Deadbeat” and “Waste” and not imagine how sick that band sounds live.

D.C. hardcore also sounds contemporary. Local scenester Pat Walsh recently tweeted at me that hardcore is “obsessed with 1980.” But I’m sure most people playing hardcore in D.C. now — regardless of this city’s storied hardcore scene — don’t care what happened in 1980, 1985 or 1995.

The urgency and energy of these bands seems as fresh to me as any hardcore I heard in my teens and 20s. This scene, right now, is as important as it ever was. I hope my list demonstrates that. — Sean Gray

Warning: Some of these songs contain explicit lyrics.

Pure Disgust, “Denied”

I finally happened to get a copy of this 7-inch a few weeks ago. Instead of listening online, I just waited until I was able to play it from start to finish. Right off the bat I hear tinges of oi, but this doesn’t just sound like The Oppressed if they started a hardcore band. “Denied” is completely tight and packs more dynamics into two minutes than most hardcore bands can do on a full LP.

Public Suicide, “No Pity”

Some people live for the breakdown, and those people would love the last 10 seconds of this song. “No Pity” pounds through until it completely falls apart in the best way. Its production sparkles, and for a lot of bands doing this, that could be a bad thing. (The vocals seem questionable at first, too.) But it works here, underscoring how much work was put into these songs.

Jävla, “Warped Ones”

Supposedly the brainchild of a teenager named Brendan Reichhardt, Jävla could come off as a tribute to bands like Anti Cimex (I hear some No Security in here, too), but this demo offers more than that. The drumming makes “Warped Ones” shine, and the guitar solo gets buried in the mix — a nice change for music in this style. It all adds up to a strong demo not just for D.C.’s scene, but for the genre overall.

Misled Youth, “Nothing Left”

“Nothing Left” solidifies Misled Youth as one of the most promising new hardcore acts in D.C. Mark Jubert has the strongest vocals of any band in DCHC right now; he’s aggressive without sounding overbearing. Closing the band’s debut 7-inch, “Nothing Left” seems to split midway through, revealing a sort of coda to everything else on this single.

Red Death, “Unholy Agony”

Red Death put out the best demo of the year, period. For some purists, this may be too metal, but for my money, the band found the perfect balance with its brand of metal-tinged hardcore. This demo comes out of the gate with a “take no prisoners” attitude: “Unholy Agony” feels as brutal as any Consumer Electronics dirge and as thrashy as the best of Death Angel, and it carries the energy of underrated New York hardcore band Misguided. But don’t let these comparisons seal the deal for you: Not many bands achieve this sound as confidently.

Collusion, “Don’t Care”

With members of Coke Bust, Public Suicide, Misled Youth and Pure Disgust, Collusion could be called a DCHC supergroup — and as expected, this demo represented a snapshot of where DCHC is right now. It’s angry and bitter, sure, but for some reason I find these songs catchy. “Don’t Care” has a slight sing-along vibe. Maybe that’s because of the simple lyrics, or the fact that this song boasts the best DCHC riff of 2014.

Protester, “Let You Forget”

If there’s a band that can recruit listeners to the new school of DCHC, it’s Protester. This single packs energy that most hardcore bands would envy, and wraps with one of the most intense song endings I’ve heard in a while — vocalist Connor Donegan screams, “Will you ever fight back?”, and the song cuts out. It’s one of those moments that makes fans remember why they started loving hardcore in the first place.

Photo by Flickr user Chey Rawhoof used under a Creative Commons license.

Moore, prolific punk-show promoter and drummer for D.C. hardcore band Coke Bust, is a key component in the engine that makes Damaged City go. He and bandmate Nick Candela booked the bands and the venue, and now here Moore is, in the packed chapel walkway that doubles as the festival’s marketplace, trying to make sure the whole thing stays on the rails. As fast as the band plays, Cülo has a reputation for slowing things down. So Moore heads back to the stage to make sure the band of mutants—and everything else—is keeping pace.

Damaged City is too important to go off course. The weekend-long all-ages festival, held two weekends ago primarily at St. Stephen’s and Columbia Heights dive The Pinch, is a celebration of hardcore in the city that birthed it and continues to embrace its ethics with more zeal than any other punk scene in the country. Alongside bigger headliners like Infest and Crudos, 10 D.C.-area hardcore bands played the fest, many of them part of a wave of surprisingly young musicians that their older peers say may be the greatest hope for D.C. hardcore in a generation.

But a dozen-odd bands doesn’t necessarily make a scene. What makes a scene are the few people who bring it all together. So there Moore stands, dutifully watching by the stage while Cülo sets up, sound-checks for maybe a tick too long, and rips into its set.

* * *

“Honestly, the best hardcore punk bands are kids between the ages of 13 and 19,” says Moore, a relative elder statesman at 27. “And there’s a ton of them. And they’re all [freaking] awesome. It’s crazy.”

Right now, D.C.’s hardcore scene has one of the most promising assortment of bands it’s seen in a long time, and many of their members are still in high school. The young Vile Faith put out an outstanding seven-song tape before disbanding last month, and some of its members—including drummer Robin Zeijlon—formed Pure Disgust and Public Suicide, the latter of which has its own EP coming out later this year. Nuclear Age released a blistering demo last fall. There’s Misled Youth, whose new album is already streaming online and should be released physically in a few months. Longer in the tooth are Red Death—whose January demo will probably go down as one of the year’s best D.C. hardcore recordings—the more metal Genocide Pact, straight-edge band Protester, and scene mainstays like Sick Fix, Give, and Moore’s own Coke Bust, among others.

Warning: Explicit lyrics.

In a way, the young kids have an advantage, because they’re more likely to live with their parents and they don’t bear the brunt of an increasingly unaffordable D.C. But those kids could also disappear from the area soon, as they go off to college or try their fortunes in another city. Moore—along with Candela—is part of the force that keeps the home fires burning.

Moore books and promotes dozens of local DIY shows a year. He hauls his PA from show to show. He stands outside of venues and hands out flyers. At Damaged City, he was the person running drum-kit components to and from the stage, depending on what the band needed. He also started a practice space behind his Takoma Park home that bands can use for as long as they need. “As far as I know, [it’s] the only affordable place you can just go and pay, like, $10 an hour and use a drum kit there,” says Priests drummer Daniele Yandel. “That’s so important for people who want to start bands.”

Moore tries to offers the kind of guidance he struggled to find when he first got involved in D.C. punk a decade ago.

Born in Montgomery County, Md., Moore was first introduced to punk rock around age 13. His mother was into ‘80s new wave and had punk friends from her days growing up in D.C. “That inadvertently exposed me to that stuff,” he says.

With his mom’s support, he started his first band in middle school, called Munk Petal, a spoonerism of “punk metal,” neither of which really described his band. Moore starts to characterize it in musical terms, then stops. “It’s what an eighth-grader’s first band would sound like,” he says.

Chris Moore

Moore and his Munk Petal bandmates played their first show at his high school, just across the street from his family’s home. It went off as well as it could have, with his friends moshing in front of the stage. But midway through the set, the school’s security guards broke up the pit, saying it was too dangerous, and shut down the show.

Moore had an idea. He called home and moved the gig across the street to his mom’s basement. Over the next few years of high school, Moore says, he and his friends put on 30 or 40 shows in that basement, including performances by regional and national bands. “It started to become a regular spot for suburban Maryland kids to come to shows,” he says.

By 2005, Moore had already carved out space in the D.C. hardcore scene with his high school band, Magrudergrind, which started when Moore was 15 and went on to tour with bigger punk and metal bands across the country.

“I think it’s important to involve younger kids,” says Chris Moore. “It’s what makes D.C. special.”

But back at home, the scene wasn’t great, Moore says. When he first began booking gigs, there weren’t many active DIY venues, and music tastes were different: People were listening to screamo—which, for all of its punk influences, didn’t always adhere to the same value structure as hardcore. The older D.C. punk community had also wound down considerably, and by then “the majority of the older people in the area were [jerks], or I thought they were [jerks],” he says. “They were really alienating to younger kids.”

If that particular crew had been his only exposure to D.C. punk, he might have lost interest and dropped out, Moore says. But around the same time, he met Matt Moffatt and Pat Vogel from Crispus Attucks, a band that anchored the city’s hardcore scene at the time. They welcomed Moore and his teenage friends. Moore says they answered questions, got them gigs, and generally helped out however they could. That stuck with Moore. Ten years later, when kids ask for his advice or guidance, Moore does what he can to help. It’s his way of perpetuating an all-ages tradition that started with the days of harDCore and the early Dischord scene.

“I think it’s important to involve younger kids,” he says, whether it’s getting them shows or involving them in the process of booking shows themselves. “It’s what makes D.C. special.” Plus, he knows if he doesn’t help those kids—if he and folks his age are dismissive or cold—“the scene kind of dies with those older people.”

* * *

Just before Give takes the stage at St. Stephen’s, Ray Brown sits in the chapel’s pews, his elbows on his knees, and thinks about what hardcore in the city means to him.

“Community, definitely community,” he says. Brown is the 16-year-old bass player for The Black Sparks, another teenage group with as much potential as any in the scene. And he says the young bands are a big part of that community. Among them, he says, “in the past year there have been, like, 10 demos recorded.”

Brown appreciates the fact that his band’s relative success is made easier by D.C.’s hardcore tradition. “D.C.’s probably the only place where it’s almost impossible to go to a show at any age and be denied, like you can’t come in,” he says. “And that’s all because of Ian MacKaye, doing everything he did to make sure shows were all-ages.”

The resurgence of young, talented bands coursing through the scene is refreshing, says Tim Mullaney, singer and guitarist for D.C. death-metal band Genocide Pact. For years, he’s used his portable, door-to-door recording kit to tape demos for punk bands, including some of the young ones. Mullaney says there were some lean years earlier this decade, when all-ages spaces were in short supply and bands weren’t as numerous or active. But while it’s had its slumps, hardcore punk has never completely died here—and people like Moore help make sure it continues on for decades. “I don’t ever see those guys quitting booking shows,” Mullaney says. “There hasn’t been a year since I’ve started going to shows that Chris hasn’t been booking four or five big shows a year.”

Meanwhile, Mullaney sees new kids picking up the baton, like Robin Zeijlon, who books shows at Tenleytown restaurant Casa Fiesta and elsewhere.

The scene is in a different, healthier place than it was when he started out, Moore says. “I do think it’s important and it’s cool that this younger crop of D.C. punk bands is getting attention,” Moore says. Some of them are planning tours this summer, too—and that’s how the music and the message spreads.

“If I were a teenager, and I saw this ripping teenage band play my town, I’d think: Oh [man], I could do that. I want to do that.”

This article has been updated to emphasize the fact that Nick Candela also booked Damaged City Fest alongside Chris Moore.

Top photo: Cülo at Damaged City Fest. Image of Chris Moore courtesy of Chris Moore.