#DOWNCAST BANDCAMP PLUS#

Live, when everything connected, they left audiences standing quietly, sometimes crying. In the middle of this moment, the California band Downcast put out a few records, played almost 200 shows over four years with legendary bands like Born Against and Rorschach, and then was gone. There was a moment in the evolution of California punk and hardcore when the music took a hard turn toward politics and DIY ethics.

#DOWNCAST BANDCAMP PLUS#

Via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.īUY VINYL HERE: /archive/vinyl/tell-me-im-alive Includes unlimited streaming of Tell Me I'm Alive But, as both activism and hatred rise again and a new generation faces menacing uncertainties, this is exactly the weight that the current cultural moment requires. This might not be for everyone, and that’s just fine. Downcast gets its weight from its style and its substance. The last song of the album, “The World He Promised to Katherine”, about a terrible personal tragedy, aspires to the kind of catharsis that the band achieved in their live sets with the song “Hope”. On the track “The Response from White America”, the band summons the real voices of African American mothers and fathers who plead with white people to care about the violence inflicted on their children. With so many dead, and the dollars still pouring in, it’s time for an accounting. “Hiding in the Limbs” faces down the CEO’s of today’s big gun manufacturers, placing them all at the scene of every mass shooting.

The oppression of indigenous peoples hasn’t ended at all, despite the attraction of its cities and the recreation in its landscapes. “Four Arrows” draws listeners into the myth of California, and its present-day connections to the state’s violent beginnings. These songs still pull their weight.Īs members Kevin Doss, Greg Doss, Brent Stephens, and Sean Sellers have evolved as musicians and humans over the last two and a half decades, the band builds on their foundation. Some of these songs, like “Sandpaper” and “Price”, were left unrecorded and you can hear where the band was going in their final days, laying wrenching emotion on top of dissonance and big chords. On this new record, their first in 25 years, Downcast offers a set that reflects that pivotal moment from years ago.

Downcast bandcamp