Tour de Life Force

I don't really follow many bands on Instagram. I'm not sure why that is... maybe because there was a time that I was looking for interaction and didn't want to fill my feed with tour dates that I wouldn't go to or reissues that I wouldn't buy... but still, there are a few on there that I did click to follow at one point or another, and apparently Life Force is one of them.

As I was scrolling through my feed a few months ago, I saw a post the Life Force had some Euro tour leftovers available in their store. I don't necessarily collect records for this band, but I'm a sucker for special tour cover, and even though this one is a bit bland and boring, I wasn't going to let the opportunity pass me by to grab one from the band... plus I still get a charge when a straight edge band covers their stuff with X's.

Interesting that the vinyl for this is from Blind Rage Records and not the more recent New Age pressing. Number 16 of only 30 made.

The Impact Of Life Force

When I went back, last year, and started digging into some of the recent New Age Records releases, one of the bands that I discovered was Life Force. The band play a pretty straight forward style of hardcore, with a slightly modern sound. They are very much a straight edge band, with X's all over their records, so I was sold on them and picked up their album last year. It is a solid record and I figured that it was about time that I grabbed their 7 inch as well.

The Impact was originally released back in 2019 on Blind Rage Records. Since New Age released the Life Force LP, it looks like they have taken ownership of the 7 inch and have given that one a 2022 reissue. The songs here are good, but the LP is definitely a step up. Still, it's a good spin when I want to listen to newer hardcore records.

When I bought the Hope And Defiance album through Discogs, the seller sent me a different color vinyl version than the one that I had ordered. I wanted the black, white and blue stripe color, which looks great with the cover art, and instead I got some orange and blue swirl that isn't very exciting. I didn't sweat it and decided to just keep it. When I ordered The Impact 7 inch from New Age, I had added the blue vinyl to the cart. As they were preparing to ship my order, New Age sent me an email to apologize because they no longer had the blue vinyl. They offered me a refund or the latest 77 pressing on orange vinyl. Not wanting to mess around and have to chase down a different version, I agreed to just take the orange (even though it looks red in these photos). If Life Force release another record, maybe I'll actually get the colored vinyl that I order.

Life Force And Defiance

When I first saw the album cover for the Life Force record, Hope And Defiance, I immediately disregarded it. With that X and hand on the front cover, it just seemed like another generic straight edge band, and I ignored it. I'm not sure exactly why I did that, because I love generic straight edge hardcore! As I was looking over the New Age Records roster recently and looking for something new to check out, when I saw the Life Force name I knew it was time to finally check out this band.

Life Force isn't as "generic" as I expected...there is something there that gives this record a bit more of a modern sound without having all personality sucked from it. While some newer bands are easy to track their sound back to specific bands or era's of hardcore, I'm having a bit of a difficult time nailing down Life Force. They just play solid hardcore without blatently trying to sound like any particular band.

The photo on the back cover with everyone crowded around the microphone with X'd up hands makes me want to see this band live.