Integrity / Bleach Everything – SDK x RFTCC 12” (Dark Operative)

Occasionally a record that’s so intriguing, out there and wonderfully bizarre that it seems too good to be true crosses my path and immediately piques my interest, makes me drop everything else that I’m doing and forces me to listen to it. Okay, so the latter isn’t true, I’ve never been coerced into playing a record, but if feels like it is simply because the audacity of the idea behind the record makes it almost impossible to ignore. SDK x RFTCC (or to give it its full title Septic Death Karaoke x Rocket From The Crypt Covers) is one of those records, as the artists responsible for it, Integrity and Bleach Everything, have taken a deep dive into slightly obscure punk rock history and played a slightly surreal game of pin the raging musical tail on the hardcore donkey, in that they’ve chosen to cover, in its entirety, a record that ninety nine point nine percent of the scene have never even heard of, let alone heard.  And that includes me.

Way back when, as I\’m duly informed by the one sheet*, Rocket From the Crypt and Septic Death released a split, double seven inch on Pusmort Records that was limited to just one hundred copies. That’s right kids, just one hundred copies. And that’s the record that Integrity and Bleach Everything cast their collective eye upon and chose to replicate in their own indomitable and completely unique styles. And the end result? It’s everything that you hope it would be with an extra side helping of brutal hardcore mayhem to make it that little bit more desirable.

Bleach Everything assume the role of Rocket From The Crypt and hammer through their five hyper-velocity offerings (including Middle and Rope) in less time than it takes Rocket mainman Speedo to tune up. While, at first, it’s a little odd to hear RFTC songs played in such glorious blitzkrieg fashion, after a couple of spins I found myself wondering why Rocket don’t play that fast and that maybe they should take a leaf out of Bleach Everything’s book and follow suit, drop the suits and just become the most Hardcore version of themselves that they can be.

Then Integrity do their thing, or more accurately Dwid and Dom Romeo (Integrity’s guitarist) do. See, the reason it’s called Septic Death Karaoke is because Integrity instead of covering the songs, take the original Septic tunes and overdub the vocals and guitars, essentially creating the first Hardcore karaoke record. And it is just as terrifying, ferocious, punishing and wonderful as your imagination dares to dream it is. I mean, I’m not exactly the world’s biggest Integrity fan, but here and now, taking Septic Death in a new and previously unexplored direction , they’ve made a believer out of me.

Whoever it was said that you can’t beat the classics had obviously never heard SDK x RFTCC because this monster proves that you really can teach old punk rock dogs new Hardcore tricks. Tim Cundle

*Which is either telling the one hundred and ten percent dead on truth or spinning an incredible yarn to sucker folks into believing, and selling, a rather delicious and audacious myth. Either way, it\’s kind of cool and like I said, I\’m not quite punk enough to know what is or isn\’t true…

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