They Live We Sleep Hit Hard On Debut EP, 'Self Harm'

This pummeling hardcore Welsh outfit offers up a violently bleak outlook on the world with their new EP. 

The final song on They Live We Sleep's debut EP 'Self Harm', 'Pig Fucker', makes use of the "I'm A Human Being Damn It My Life Has Value" sample from the classic 1976 film, Network. For those not in the know, it was a movie about how a TV network grossly exploited a poor mentally ill ex-TV anchor's giant chip on his shoulder regarding the sheer prevalence and evil control of the media for the network's own cynical gains.

The supposed "woke" message here - other than the song's title maybe being a reference to the events of the pilot episode of Black Mirror and about telling the higher-ups in places to power to fuckin' shove it - is one of resistance and self-awareness about how our lives can be so easily manipulated and controlled by media and by the government. But also about how we citizens as a collective often just swallow up the rain disguised as piss that is dropped down on us; a kind of "self-harm", if you will.

After all, the name of the band that created this rather extreme EP and who penned this heavy, hair-raising final track is called They Live We Sleep. So for one to not expect dire political musings about modern life from a metallic hardcore band with a moniker like that would be rather silly, now wouldn't it?

Of course, there are some personal points of self-hatred and loathing that crop up, like the EP's savage second song 'Destroy What Destroys You' - a title which is dangerously close to sounding like an old Hatebreed lyric - and is a song that embodies this release's idea of self-harm; both physical and mental. For as the South Wales group themselves put it, this is "a project used to vent some aggression and energy, that would otherwise be turned inwards", and that really shows in the pure rage that's entrenched in these five scathing songs.

Borrowing the extreme hardcore, crust and grind sounds of other well-known artists like Converge, Nails, Cult Leader, Trap Them, as well as All Pigs Must Die, this new-coming U.K. outfit's debut release is a vile and filthy hardcore EP. One that's full of nasty and throat-slicing guitar riffs, vehement vocals raging about the bullshit of society, and noisy, skin-smashing drums that land like gunshots going off right outside your front door. They Live We Sleep channel all of these aggressive sounds and explosive elements into five songs that barely reach the 10-minute mark to make for an that is the sonic equivalent of taking a boot right to the head and then picking your damn teeth up off the floor.

Fuck with 'Self Harm' below if you need more pissed-off hardcore in your life.