“Nobody dies but the pain remains.”
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. While the former mantra is a bit tired, there are solid grounds for why it’s held up this long. A single rusted link can be the difference between faltering beyond the point of any triumph and sustained ascendancy.
The Acacia Strain, No Cure, Thus Spoke Zarathrusta, and Pure Bliss range from instantly recognizable to promising journeymen from a notoriety standpoint. However, all of them share a rousing commonality in terms of pure talent. Top to bottom, each outfit is a product of internally honed craft. Whether it’s The Acacia Strain, No Cure, or Pure Bliss causing riots in a hardcore pit or Thus Spoke Zarathrusta reducing crowds to dust, they have made their respective curb-stomped marks thanks to an evenly aggregated sum of all audible parts.
Super group is a term that is scarcely thrown around in the underground music space. For good reason. Self-proclamation establishes a swath of expectation that hardly any artist manages to live up to. Of course, that’s not to suggest that no group that labelled themselves that way didn’t turn out to be great. PSYCHO-FRAME, Hollow Prophet, and Scarlet Rot are names that come to mind, yet ultimately remain three of a very few that can justifiably put themselves in super group territory.
Even more sparsely, and maybe preferably, tertiary projects sprout up with no self-affirmed pontification of how awesome they are or why you should listen to them. You look at the line up and can immediately deduce that what you’re about to hear is going to kick complete ass. A super group that needs no pretentious advertisement for prowess; only to let you know they exist. For the quartet of bands previously mentioned, they have formed the textbook definition of that. With the vocal talents of Vincent Bennett (The Acacia Strain) and the astute musicianship of Brandon Albaugh (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), Duncan Newey (No Cure, Bleak, Emaciated), and Danny Grant (Pure Bliss), STOLEN GUN is the next unbreakable concatenation of steel primed for hardcore punishment.
At a very lean seven tracks and eleven minutes, STOLEN GUN’s debut demo is a sludge-filled Tsukuyomi with very high replay value. Not a solitary second is wasted from start to finish. It has the pace of The Acacia Strain’s Step Into the Light, No Cure’s death-filled riff work, the melancholic atmosphere of Thus Spoke Zarathrusta, and the syrupy grind of Pure Bliss. Ergo, STOLEN GUN is a true cross-pollination of its members’ primary outlets. This makes for an immaculately contorted offspring out for blood, and we are about to bear witness to its atrocities.
“SFG INTRO” and “THE GLORIOUS ARRIVAL OF THE NEW LORD AND SAVIOR” open the initial wounds up. Bennett’s piercing growls, gunshot samples, and scorched earth instrumentals palpably sink their teeth into listeners without any hesitation. The beginning tandem of tracks will feel like a masochistic eternity despite only encompassing two minutes. In true death-hardcore fashion, STOLEN GUN quickly signifies an ability to keep a breakneck speed that can still feel like anaesthesia-bereft surgical flaying.
Before any true hardcore kids start to worry, STOLEN GUN has a fully poison-dipped magazine of breakdowns at the ready. “EAT THE SKULL” and “GOD IS HERE” showcase STOLEN GUN turning off the safety of their melodic machine gun and firing away with seditious delight. Assuming STOLEN GUN plays live sets at some point in the future, both songs are candidates for resulting in crowd annihilation. Mosh pit sheriffs won’t be handing out tickets, but rather trying to prevent homicide should this group ever step foot on a stage.
If any relenting juncture of this gauntlet exists, it is on “ABUSE OF POWER”. This is purely relative, however. Execution wheel breakdowns and leads are still rampant. Titularly akin to preparing a ravenous mob of revolutionaries to take on every higher power, STOLEN GUN nonetheless offers a barrage of sound to appetize listeners as the demo ends with “LELAND” and “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE” serving as a final round of brass-knuckle haymaking footnotes.
STOLEN GUN’s rapid-fire debut is the quintessential exhibit of what a true super group can achieve. Nothing flashy or fancy about it; just fundamentally bone-crushing hardcore executed with razor-sharp precision. With their entry demo, STOLEN GUN reminds us that when you take the best aspects of several source materials and properly agglutinate them together, there is no limit to what can be accomplished. The chain has been made and already feels indestructible with respect to what STOLEN GUN has managed to create. If there is one vice that straight-edge metal musicians do have, it’s an uncurable addiction for consistently putting out anarchy-inducing sound. Lick your wounds while you still can; STOLEN GUN is on track to reduce us all to nothingness, should they maintain this stride going forward.
9/10
DEMO 2025 is available everywhere on streaming platforms, and you can purchase it digitally on STOLEN GUN’s Bandcamp here.