Choking Victim: No Gods / No Managers [HELLCAT]

Why you'll love it

This Hellcat LP comes with a lyric insert and a hidden bonus track tucked in after a stretch of silence. It's the band's sole full-length, and it inspired a whole wave of punk bands.

This edition

• Lyric insert
• Hidden bonus track

About the album

Choking Victim came out of the New York squat scene with a sound nobody else had: lurching ska upstrokes that suddenly fall into hardcore and crust punk. They recorded their album in Alphabet City in March 1998 and in Los Angeles that April, mixed it that May, and went their separate ways around the time it was done, leaving this as their full-length statement.

Stza and Ezra trade guitars and vocals, Shayne plays bass and Skwert drums, with producer Mike Trujillo at the desk and Tommy Trujillo adding flamenco guitar. "500 Channels" opens with a skank and a snarl, "In Hell" and "In My Grave" swing between offbeat bounce and full-tilt thrash, "Five-Finger Discount" and "Praise To The Sinners" pile on the hooks, and several songs from their earlier EPs appear here in new recordings. Eric Drooker painted the cover.

PunkNews said they carried on the legacy of Operation Ivy by shaking up the scene, and Gallows guitarist Laurent Barnard called it a masterpiece. Its members went on to Leftöver Crack and more. The original sleeve skipped the barcode on principle, so we had to find other ways to ring it up.

Also at Kops: more Choking Victim on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Hellcat / Epitaph (cat# 80408-1), the 1999 album.