Cassette Review // Leaking Head "Leaking Head 2024 EP" (Tetryon Tapes)

https://tetryontapes.bandcamp.com/album/leaking-head-2024-ep

The first distinction I need to make with this cassette is that, as is the case with most Tetryon Tapes, there isn't really a "Side A" and a "Side B" so much as I feel like one side has a white label and the other has a black label.   This can be made more obvious through the photos of the cassette itself.  The way this happened to be was for the "black side" to start first, so I pressed play on that.  As I got into the song "Get Rich + Die", the cassette just came to an abrupt end.  I thought it might be the end of the side but there was still tape left- just dead air.

Once I get to the point where I flip the cassette and begin the "white side", not only does it contain all of the songs but it repeats them more than once.  So you have to think about this cassette as starting on the "white side" and then just finishing on the other side, though that might have been the fourth or fifth time you'd hear "Get Rich + Die".   This is also partly due to the fact that Leaking Head doesn't have a song over two minutes because they hit hard and they hit fast.  

What I like most about this sound is that I can't quite place it in a way which I could relate with another band.   I remember back at the time (maybe early 2000's) I read somewhere about bands on Nitro Records and Guttermouth sort of dropped a subtle diss at AFI.  But yet, if you took that older AFI hardcore sound (such as on their early Nitro Records releases) and added some of the Guttermouth punk to it, then you might begin to understand how exactly this sounds.

Though this is fast paced and overall just has punk roots while feeling like it's hardcore on the surface, the way this has laughing at times and audio clips, as well as these big beats just come in for a breakdown make this feel just so much unlike anything I've ever heard before, but combines those moments of artists such as Some Girls and Snapcase, so I am instantly in love.  There are also some rather technical guitar aspects to this all, so don't let the idea of it being played at top speed fool you in that regard either.