Dethbox at Blast-O-Mat

Waves of hardcore have come and gone since the salad days of the early '80s. With few genuine musical outlets for angst and rampaging energy open to young people in the past several years, it was inevitable that a band like Dethbox would come along and put its own stamp on a musical form in decline and make it new again. And with no Ronald Reagan to target but no shortage of people taking shots at George W. Bush, Dethbox (due on Wednesday, July 15, at Blast-O-Mat) has found ample fodder for its aggressively sonic assault in the pieties not just of society, but of the hardcore scene itself. Most of the band's songs, clocking in at under thirty seconds, are machine-gun bursts of dark humor, rage and catharsis that are as unrelenting as they are exhilarating.