MINI-ALBUM REVIEW: Brigata Vendetta – The Disease And The Cure (Pirates Press Records)
Brigata Vendetta are a three-piece hardcore band from the Bay Area of California which evolved out of street-punk outfit Harrington Saints.
Formed in late 2022 they released their debut album This Is How Democracy Dies (reviewed here) in 2024, and this eight-song 12in – too short to be an album but too long to be an EP – is the follow-up.
Bass-playing frontman Darrel Wojick’s voice is instantly recognisable, and he’s joined by former Saints guitarist Mike Caputo and Bum City Saints drummer Brian Zobel. Together they play ’80s hardcore like it’s never been away.
Brigata Vendetta rage against the power structures of the modern world, the elite who pull the strings, and the minions who enable them. This album feels more angrier, and much more political.
Title track The Disease and The Cure, which opens the record, is powered by some breakneck D-beat drumming, and sounds like Discharge, while Killing Me opens with a sludgy intro before exploding, and the fast-slow dynamic is maintained all the way through.
I Can’t Breathe is named after the last words of George Floyd, who used the phrase 20 times while a Minneapolis cop kneeled on his neck to restrain him in 2020. His death sparked worldwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism, and the song is my favourite track here.
Running it a close second is lead single Modern Sins. Packed with charging guitars, Darrel rages “Fuck all of them, fuck all of that, fuck how they make us feel, what changes that?/Fuck their disdain for the human race, let’s wipe the smiles off their fucking face.”
A throbbing bassline drives Corporate Control, which rails against the influence big business has over all our lives, while Headed For A Fight warns that the people have had enough.
Feed The Lions cranks things up even higher before the closing Coup d’état, which has a darker UK 82 feel, makes no secret of what they see as the answer to the world’s current inequalities, where the rich seem to flourish while ordinary people pay for it.
The pace and the aggression of this record never let up, and with just two of the tracks making it beyond the two-minute mark, it’s a short, sharp shock to the system, over and done with inside 15 minutes. 8/10.
