Line Drive Death Cave

Earlier this year I picked up the first Line Drive 7 inch on a whim as I was picking up other records from a seller, because why buy one record when you can buy many. I was familiar with the band's name, but never really had the opportunity to check them out too deeply. Grabbing that record was finally the time to do it, and I was immediately hooked... putting those songs from the 7 inch on a playlist alongside Forethought and Flagman for my daily dose of 90's hardcore.

Shortly after I got that post up for The Few, I was surprised to find a comment from the Line Drive singer, Gray, telling me that he still had a few copies of their second 7 inch laying around and that if I wanted one to drop him an email.

Soon after exchanging a couple of emails with Gray, and sending him my address, the Lead On 7 inch arrived. Sure I could have picked up on Discogs for cheap, but it was such a kind and generous offer from him and I'm grateful to finally have this copy in my collection. Shame that the record label didn't give us a colored vinyl version.

Man, I just love this style of early 90's hardcore. This shit never gets old for me, and it is so exciting for me to finally hear these songs in 2026. Yeah, I love new music... especially when it's 30+ years old.

In addition to the Lead On 7 inch, Gray took the opportunity to ship off a record from one of his more recent bands, Saddam Death Cave.

I usually ignore free records that people throw in with my order from labels and Discogs. Generally, I'm not interested in helping someone clean clutter out of their house, but I was grateful that Gray sent the Line Drive record, so I figured that I could at least check it out. Right off the bat I notice that the band does a cover of Naked Raygun's Rat Patrol, so my interest was piqued... and then I saw the band bio on Spotify that said "The elevator pitch was, and I quote, "Let's be like Poison Idea but without the morbid obesity. Like, just record a 7" and then one of us dies in a car accident."... that was it... I was suddenly interested to hear this band.

This Planned Obsolescence 10 inch is really quite good. I'm not too familiar with Poison Idea, but I can hear the influence... and the influence kind of make me think of Clifford from Bl'ast... so yeah, I'm digging this. Thanks Gray!

Line Drive

Back in the mid 90's I picked up a 7 inch comp called What Still Holds True. I bought the comp strictly because it had songs from Chokehold and Burst of Silence, but ended up disappointed that those songs ended up on the bands respecive 7 inches that were released around the same time... so the comp 7 inch largely went ignored. At some point years later when I was hungry to discover some 90's hardcore that I'd missed the first time around, I started looking at those old comps for smaller bands that escaped my radar at the time.

Line Drive were a straight edge band out of North Carolina and given the small obsession that I had with collecting Naked Angels years back, discovering that Rob R Rock was also in this band gave me a bit of a thrill. I'm sure that I'd heard the Line Drive name back in the early 90's (outside of the one comp song that I had) through zines or distros, and I know that if I'd seen their first 7 inch, The Few, I would have definitely picked it up... but it somehow never crossed my path at the time. I eventually downloaded the songs and it absolutely fits that early 90's hardcore sound.

The Line Drive stuff has just been hanging out on my iTunes for a while now, and a couple time each year it would catch my eye and I'd hit play... but man, there is something special about just owning the physical record. Since this record arrived in the mail, I've listened to it more in the past couple of months than I have in the past 20 years.