Under The Influence #11: Dead Hands on “The Struggle Continues” by Link 80!

Released by Asian Man Records in the year 2000, “The Struggle Continues” is the third album from East Bay San Francisco Californian band Link 80. Known for an energetic blend of Hardcore, Punk and Ska, it’s the first album to feature vocalist Ryan Noble and guitarist Adam Davis after the death frontman Nick Traina from a self-administered morphine overdose at the home of a friend. During his life he had a number of psychiatric hospitalizations and had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. The last track on the album, entitled “Unbroken”, was written by guitarist Matt Bettinelli-Olpin for Nick after his death.

Richard Conroy Philips from Dead Hands: “I was 17 when this came out and pretty much balls deep into pop-punk and ska-punk. The only “heavy” things I really listened to where Slipknot and Linkin Park and to be fair “Hybrid Theory” and Slipknot’s self titled 1999 album probably helped mold me just as much. However what those 2 albums didn’t leave me with were questions. At the time there were a million nu-metal bands of varying quality. This album had little flourishes from genres I’d never bothered with or straight up never really heard of! The opening track if you discount the brass (aye, I know that’s impossible for a lot of you) had nods towards a cold blast of black metal. It’s not so much that this didn’t parp you into a skank fuelled coma it’s that the in between bits would give a stanky crusty dread to the eye or an elbow to the jaw from some VOD fan successfully figuratively picking up change from the floor. The rabbit holes of hardcore, crust, and black metal are deep and weird and if that hasn’t created a suitable moniker for my personality I don’t know what has! At the time you had The Locust, Botch, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Poison The Well, Converge , and my beloved Every Time I Die at the fringes of the hardcore scene and their boundary pushing is the heart of where all my musical taste lays today! The crust took a little longer to stick. I think it’s an older ear that can relate to the belligerence and anger fuelled phlegm that flies from the stage and speakers. Once stuck though, then get ready to dance a stank face chin against chest waddle through grindcore and all the subgenres, once it’s cracked you’re filthy forever!!! I know I’ve gone on about other genres and bands a lot here but without Link 80 my pristine windowed house would still be resplendent with glass, it’s all f***ed now.”

Dead Hands have a new single out entitled “Challenge TV”! They’re hands down the best band from Birmingham to infuse Mathcore, Hardcore, Black Metal and even Grindcore! They’ve got a wonderful chaotic live show that you’d be insane to miss!