Photo by AndiChrist

“‘Rigged Survival’ is about the suffocating reality of being priced out of your own life. It’s about waking up everyday in a system where your value is in your obedience and output. Even our hobbies, our art and joy have become a luxury most of us can’t afford,” Dry Socket vocalist Dani Allen says of the lead single from their sophomore effort, Self Defense Techniques, out this spring on Get Better Records. It’s true. You can’t even hate on a Pitchfork score without paying for it nowadays.

Needless to say, like their new labelmates in COMMITMENT, the Portland hardcore punks are absolutely fed up with the oppressive crush of capitalism and the way it fucks with our heads. To contend with it, it’s all-out feral intensity and a guttural slam dance across a two-and-a-half-minute listen that very much sparks a similar conflagration as CEREMONY’s Violence, Violence days of full-on fury. Ross Farrar’s got nothing on Allen’s life-in-containment combustion, however. You just don’t fuck with someone who has nothing left to lose.

Dry Socket’s Self Defense Techniques will be released March 27th on Get Better Records.