2 out of 5

Label: Expert Works records

Produced by: Joey Generic (recorded by)

Uh… sure. I get that there’s a history of love for the scene here, thanks to Birth (Defects) participants being heavily involved in various capacities for a decade (and sometimes decades) plus; I bet the coolest heads will tell you they’d been following B (D) over their sporadic 7″ releases. By the time I caught up with the band, amidst some relative hype for their 2025 Reptilian Records album debut, it just kinda sounded like a lot of the love-for-the-scene noise rock RR puts out, which is not a bad thing, but my ears have difficulty discerning of lot of bands that approximate a large middleground of that genre from one another.

Anyhow, I’m trying to report some bias up front: I accept B (D), like most bands, is gonna have its fans, but I’m coming into the live recording already sort of chilled. And it rather solidifies my feelings: these dudes love noise rock, and on Will Shatter Rides Again, to the extent that they’re willing to commit to a purposefully shitty recording for the full effect. It… works? For effect. But maybe not for content.

I think the material here, which has a kind of badass early Dischord vibe (early early Dischord) mixed with the ripping low-end of hardcore, would’ve totally sold me on the band had it made its way to a studio recorded album. Oh, ha, wait: it did, as that debut album I mentioned. So I don’t quite know what the reality was / is, but I want to allow that there’s a world where I keep trying to approach B (D) from different angles until it clicks eventually, and I appreciate that this live, shitty recording is a step towards that.

But anyway: add a ton of electro noise like Brainiac turned up to 18, and tune the band’s Nirvana and Cherubs nods more towards punk, and then record it (literally) live, from the back of a room, with a single mic, and maybe also off to one side near a bigass speaker. You’ve been to those live shows; it’s too loud, even for your young, punkish ears, though you’re caught up in the beat and nodding to some undoubted antics and energy on stage. The group makes an impression. You wander to the merch table to browse, but get distracted by the shirts of the band you came to see, and you’ve really only got $20 on you, so… what was the name of that opening act again?

I don’t think B (D) would be against that narrative. Does that make Will Shatter something you’re planning on actively returning to, though?