REVIEW: Thought | Pushed Aside split 7″ (2015)

BAND: Thought | Pushed Aside
RELEASE: split 7″ (2015)
REVIEWER: Riz Farooqi of King Ly Chee
FIND MORE INFO HERE:
Thought: https://www.facebook.com/thoughtPH?fref=ts
Pushed Aside: will get it…
Final Rating: 10/10

THIS 7″ is probably one of the easiest things I will ever have the pleasure of reviewing.

Some quick background – both these bands Thought and Pushed Aside are from the wonderful world of the Philippines. A country that we have an immense soft spot for so yes, we pretty much favor anything that comes out of that country…including their hardcore. But regardless of anyone’s biases – when you put the needle down on side A which features 5 phenomenal tracks by the hugely talented 5 piece Thought from Cebu, there is no denying that hardcore genius is at hand.

Before I even go into the music and lyrics, both of which are remarkable, let’s just quickly talk about the musicianship captured on this piece of wax especially the drums. The drums on Thought’s 5 tracks?! Damn! I love how crisp everything is in the overall punch of the drums which could be the engineer working his/her magic, BUT I actually think it speaks volumes of the drummer’s expertise and passion for hardcore. He is a tight drummer who clearly is well versed in punk/hardcore as you can tell with his on point fills and musical arrangements – it’s just plain and simple that Thought has a killer drummer whose talent was captured well on this release.

Now the music…both bands play that Champion, early Comeback Kid, Revelation Records style of hardcore that fans of Asian greats Second Combat and Kids on the Move would easily fall in love with. Pushed Aside bring in the heaviness but Thought’s 5 tracks of passionate well-executed hardcore is what you will be repeating for days.

Thought’s opening track “Version” starts with melodic guitars that grab at your heartstrings before their singer, Grey, screams the words “Justice denied” opening the floodgates to hell launching the band into a frenetic paced hardcore punk number. Her lyrics on this track “Two sides, two truths, none guilty” and “Tipping the scale for a price / Truth has been raped so many times” coupled with her passionate delivery will no doubt have you wanting to hear MUCH more than the 5 songs on this release. The second track continues down the path of beautifully crafted hardcore with the last line being something that will be etched in your heart forever “This is going nowhere / Wake up from the nightmare“. “The Relevance” is the third track that begins with a Have Heart-esque intro and teases with a little breakdown before it tosses you right back into fast hardcore. If you’re looking for tough guy breakdowns, NYHC stomp parts…you got the wrong band. What you will hear is passionate hardcore punk done the way it should be…fast, urgent, middle fingers up to trends in hardcore, and a band barreling down their own path.

Pushed Aside’s 4 tracks start off with a pit anthem that has insane tempo changes that at last count, they drop 3 times in this one track. Millan’s higher pitched vocals fit perfectly that old school hardcore-punk vibe that Pushed Aside fly the flag of proudly. “Ink on My Skin” is a tribute to a fallen friend of there’s and is a passionate cry for their friend up in heaven to know that down here on this cold earth, there are a loving few who will never forget his existence and the profound stamp his life left on his friends. What a beautiful tribute…”You’ll always stay with me / Like this ink on my skin / No, we won’t forget you / No, never we will“.

As soon as I put the needle down on this split I was astounded by the quality of both bands…I shouldn’t have been…however, I was. I saw Grey the vocalist of Thought online and quickly sent her a few questions:

Tell us how this 7″ idea came about between you guys and Pushed Aside.
We wanted some sort of validation of our existence in this life especially as a band, and the way to do that was to put out our own music on 7″.

How did it turn out to become a split release with Pushed aside instead of a 7″ with only Thought tracks?
Expense-wise, that was the sensible direction instead of each band releasing something individually. And we love Pushed Aside so its a win win situation.

How did you guys decide to release it on vinyl? Where was it printed? We were looking into releasing our latest album CNHC on vinyl but it was too expensive.
We really wanted to have our next release to be on vinyl so we approached Pushed Aside to see if they were willing to do a split with us and literally split everything including the cost and they said yes so both bands donated money to make it happen. We had 500 copies printed in the US. And yes, it was quite expensive actually but when the package arrived, it was worth it.

What’s next for Thought? A full length pretty please?!
Next for us is to continue to write more good songs and hopefully we can do a full length if we can afford it then or another split.

You are all very lucky…with me pushing Grey and the Thought crew I was able to convince them to put this release up on their bandcamp so you can listen to it AND more importantly, buy it right fucking NOW!

Enjoy it below…spread the fucking word about this release worldwide!