Leftöver Crack: Mediocre Generica [HELLCAT]

Why you'll love it

This Hellcat edition is pressed on 180g vinyl in Canada. It's the record that put Stza's New York band on the punk map, mixing skanking upstrokes with hardcore speed and big gang choruses.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in Canada

About the album

Leftöver Crack came out of New York's Lower East Side squat scene, formed by Stza (Scott Sturgeon) from the remains of Choking Victim, and they made a style out of colliding two things that rarely share a stage: bouncy ska and furious hardcore. Their debut came out on Hellcat, the Epitaph imprint run by Rancid's Tim Armstrong.

The songs swing from offbeat skank to breakneck thrash, sometimes in the same minute. "Homeo-Apathy" kicks things off, "Atheist Anthem" and "Gay Rude Boys Unite" wear their convictions loudly (the album takes clear stands against racism and homophobia), "The Good, the Bad, and the Leftöver Crack" has a gang-vocal swagger, and "Crack City Rockers" became a calling card. Stza's raspy snarl and the band's trade-off vocals give even the heaviest songs a ragged, communal feel, more house party than stadium.

It's loud, sincere and built for sweaty basement shows, and it still sounds that way. The title is the band's own joke, and possibly the least accurate description of a record we've ever had on the wall.

Also at Kops: more Leftöver Crack on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Hellcat (cat# 80433-1), a reissue of the 2001 album.