The German-speaking areas of Sudetenland traced the northern, western, and southern edges of former Czechoslovakia, creating regions with their own distinct culture in contrast with the rest of the Czech Republic as well as the bordering countries of Germany and Poland. This distinction may explain why the town of Liberec in northern Sudentenland yielded the mischievous and anachronistic hardcore band Hopes.

If you were to combine the rock n’ revelry of Turnstile, the muscular hooks of Blacklisted, and the metallic crunch of Bitter End, you might have a close approximation of Hopes sound, but ultimately these young and wild bucks are forging their own path. On their 2019 debut album Breathing Underwater, Hopes churn out eight razor-sharp bursts of thick and chunky modern hardcore with genre-bending flourishes, an indication that the band are both reverent to the roots of hardcore while simultaneously thumbing their noses at staunch traditionalism. Across its adrenalizing twenty-minute runtime, you get the impression that Hopes hold the defiant spirit of hardcore in high esteem while deeming nothing else sacred.

Whether it’s the old school sound filtered through beefed up modern equipment on tracks like “Break an Edge,” the unabashed rock of “Eyes Stoned Dry” and “World Ender,” the ruthless hammerings of “Dead Heat” and “Real United,” or the thrash-inflected wrath of “No Matter the Cost,” Hopes deliver adrenalized mosh-ready tracks with their own distinctly disobedient flair. Throw it on and get to clobberin’.

Track Listing:
01. Break An Edge
02. Eyes Stoned Dry
03. World Ender
04. Dead Heat
05. Swallow
06. Bad Trip
07. Real United
08. No Matter the Cost