Photo by Taylor Jones

Ian Shelton is arguably better known as the frontman as Militarie Gun these days, but it wasn’t always so. Regional Justice Center, his extra violent-sounding hardcore band, is his original breakthrough art within the scene. The project has been something of a more personal/political space for him to convey deep critiques on prison institutions as well as reflect on the events that have led someone there — in his case, his brother, Max, who up until 2022 had been incarcerated for a Class A felony where the facts of what transpired during the night of the alleged incident weren’t completely clear. Shelton’s making good on his word to make sure Max has work waiting for him on the other side by inviting him — alongside acclaimed aggressive music producer / Twitching Tongues guitarist Taylor Young — into the fray for the band’s third full-length effort, FREEDOM SWEET FREEDOM. Max isn’t just doing his part a shadow in the background either. On the album’s early highlight, “TAKE A STEP AWAY”, we hear — or perhaps, feel — from him for the first time in the words channeling through. “I would never want to hear you’re proud of me / It’s a phrase / Indiscretion,” his screams warning, vocals bleeding white noise into the listen’s damaged friction. Normally, catharsis and fury lie on different sides of the plane, but here from Max Hellesto’s POV, lock-up has understandably conflated the two in the heaviest of ways.

Regional Justice Center’s FREEDOM SWEET FREEDOM will be released September 20th on Closed Casket Activities.