Scholastic Deth - Final Examiner
So as of today I'm officially done with classes, potentially forever. From here on out, any class I decide to take is purely an audit. Granted, I'm not even close to being done with my degree because I still have to do my fields papers and my dissertation, all of which will take an ass long time and be an ass lot of reading, research, interviewing, etc., but at least I don't have to go to class anymore.
In honor of this momentous occasion, I'm taking a look at Scholastic Deth's discography, appropriately entitled "Final Examiner."
Scholastic Deth is one of my favorite straight ahead hardcore bands of the 21st century. A bold statement, but one I'm prepared to back up.
I've had a lot of friends who have told me that the problem with the music I listen to (various hardcore and metal type stuffs) is that it all sounds the same. I could launch into an argument about how that's not true and blah blah blah, but let's just be honest: it's true. Most hardcore just rearranges a handful of pre-written chords, beats, lyrics, etc.
Personally, I don't have a problem with this. I think what people miss when they say shit like this is that the point of hardcore isn't really mind blowing song writing but the energy and urgency of it. The best hardcore bands are the ones that play like it's the only thing keeping them alive, and the best hardcore records are the ones which can best capture that kind of intensity on disc. That's what separates good hardcore from shit hardcore.
Scholastic Deth was one of those bands that bleeds energy in every song. Almost everything they ever wrote begins with piercing feedback, busts into a 90 m.p.h. blast of thrashing and yelling, and then ends 30 seconds later with another blast of feedback. They stumbled across the perfect formula for a kick ass hardcore song and packed each record they put out so tight with rock that 10 minutes of Scholastic Deth feels like 2 hours by most bands, in a good way.
And then there's the lyrics. Given that they're a band of grad students who specifically write about things like books and school you might be tempted to think that the lyrics would venture off into that bullshit "Orchid by their last record" thing where they're writing these kinds of goofy lyrics which seem to serve no purpose other than to sound postmodern and smart (as a friend of mine from school sarcastically quips whenever she sees someone write in a jargon-laden way "if you can't understand me, then it means I'm smarter than you!").
The other side of the coin for hardcore bands is to venture so far into hardcore sloganeering that the lyrics just become a sort of mish-mash of the anthemic things hardcore bands are supposed to say. You know what I mean. "You left the crew/I'll never turn my back/Take me back to the way things used to be/Don't forget the times we had/I'll always be your friend/Fuck you for the things you did/etc." Eventually, the lyrics become so trite as to seem almost totally disconnected from reality, kind of like how Sammy Hagar wrote the same three love songs over and over while he was in Van Halen. Who the fuck are these songs about? They don't mean a fucking thing, eventually. They just exist so people can sing along with some nice sentiment and in no way represent any kind of actual statement about a tangible situation.
Fortunately, Scholastic Deth didn't fall into either of these traps. Instead, they consistently wrote some of the most direct, thought provoking, and catchy lyrics I think I've ever heard. They perfectly walked the line between being smart and being anthemic, without ever sacrificing one to the other. When Scholastic Deth had something to say, they didn't water it down into a catch-phrase or burden it with all kinds of unnecessarily florid prose. They just fucking said it. Howie Becker and Jurgen Habermas would be proud.
I should point out here that I totally came up with a title for the new record we're finishing up that I thought was awesome but that Nader said sound like something a grad student would come up with, which is weak because he totally has a master's degree. I thought the title ruled.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Scholastic Deth.
So if you never heard Scholastic Deth, please rectify this situation. If you have heard Scholastic Deth, please break out whatever you have by them and give it another listen. Definitely some of the smartest and catchiest hardcore to come out in recent memory.
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While I'm on the subject, I also want to plug the relatively new discography by Uzi Suicide. I don't have the time to give it a full review right now, but everything I just said about Scholastic Deth also applies to Uzi Suicide. They also have an AWESOME band name. Good for them. If you haven't heard them, definitely check out the discography.
