Major Pain

A couple of years I went to California for a couple of weeks and knocked about at RevHQ and stayed with Dave Mandel. I'm sure I've probably mentioned it a few times. One of the people I met on that trip was a young kid called Cole, who had started working at RevHQ a couple of months prior. I chatted to him a few times and I really enjoyed his company. At the time he was 19 and really into old school straight edge hardcore. I thought it seemed pretty rare for a younger kid to be more interested in Youth Of Today, SSD and Insted than whatever bands other 19 year olds would be into. One day he mentioned he had a band called Major Pain, and then over the last couple of years I have followed the band's progress. They've played a lot in their native California, and earlier this year released their debut LP, 'Intent', on Indecision Records. I really wanted to support them, so picked up a copy of the record.

This clear with orange splatter version is the more limited colour, out of 150 copies. It's orange for Orange County. I love details like that.

There are 8 songs on here, which come in at 16 minutes total. Like a lot of records these days, I'm slightly unsure as to whether this is a full album or just a 12" EP. I guess the lines are blurring these days given that 7"s are less common and the 12" is the format of choice. Anyway, like a lot of southern Californian bands, Major Pain plays some pretty heavy hardcore. Someone said that they sound just like Bitter End, and I think that's pronbably a very fair comparison. They've also been compared to Killing Time and Outburst, and I can see that too.

I also got sucked into buying a test press for this record. I saw a pic of one posted on instagram and loved the simplicity of the front cover, with just the logo in the middle of a plain white sleeve. This is a great way to package a test press.

This record has been up there with my favourite hardcore records of the year. The funny thing is that the first time I listened to it was in the gym in a hotel in Baltimore. It was one of the eeriest places I have ever been. This gy was completely empty and totally silent, and full of equipment that looked like it had been there since the 70s. I was half expecting Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers to walk in at any moment and hack me to pieces. But this record playing in me ears had me pumped up and ready to fight. Not that I would have lasted two seconds against either of those two.

So in the last couple of years before the album came out, Indecision had released two Major Pain 7"s, both of which I also picked up.

On the left is the 'Demo 22' 7", which is (unsurprisingly) the band's demo put to vinyl. And on the right the 'Promo 2023' lathe cut 7", which contains two songs frmo the LP. Both of these came out well in advance of the LP, but obviously the promo 7" is kind of surplus to requirements now.

Indecision has a bundle offer up in their store for the LP and demo 7" which seems pretty good but probably won't last too long. You could do a lot worse.