Album Reviews

Back in 2000, when I first started my blog, Asian Man Records was one of the first labels to send me promos. One of the very first CDs to arrive in my mailbox was Link 80’s The Struggle Continues... I still vividly remember listening to it and thinking, this is ska, but not as I know it. It blew me away completely.

Why bring that up now? Because Omnigone features former members of Link 80, and they’re still going strong. Case in point: their fourth album, Turn Up the Fear, finds them leaning even more into their punk and hardcore roots than on previous releases. And I’m all for it. After all, desperate times call for angry music. Listening to tracks like "Flagburner," "Liar," and "Panem et Circenses," it’s not hard to see where that frustration is directed. My personal favorite, though, is the album’s centerpiece, "As Above, So Below," a masterclass in fusing blistering hardcore with ska.

Can't decide whether you want to skank or mosh? Looking for furious, top-tier ska-core? Turn Up the Fear delivers the goods front to back.

Turn Up The Fear track listing:

1. Set The Tone
2. New Horrors
3. Flagburner
4. Corpse of Corporations
5. Liar
6. Maggots
7. As Above So Below
8. Empathy
9. Turn Up The Fear
10. Best Revenge
11. Panem Et Circenses
12. Default Settings
13. Attention
14. All Hands On Deck