Fresh Takes: Crop Rot 'Demo 2025'
Crop Rot - Demo 2025 (Tearjerker)
Released: 2.21.25.
Rocks Like: Embrace, Adolescents
Louisville, KY’s Crop Rot are a total enigma to me. Part ripping hardcore, part moody goth rock. There’s a balance of early London punk snark, lightning fast L.A. hardcore drumming, and Manchester’s quirky and vulnerable experimentation. Their Demo 2025 is a product of all of these influences but an imitation of none. Crop Rot don’t display any need for subgenres; is punk rock not fucking descriptive enough for you?
With the opening mosh-igniting bass rumbles of “Hanger Clinic” the band begin a record full of dynamic shifts. The aloof but direct yelp of its vocals sit atop a miasma of feedback and crunchy guitars that accelerate in tempo from side-to-side stomp to the fastest of hardcore fury. Then “Throw It Away” throws you for a loop; the guitar hook is instantly as catchy as anything happening in indie rock while the loud-rocking choruses maintain the band's fuzzy and harsh production choices. This is the trade-off and maybe even the basic principle of the band. Crop Rot manage to be incredibly infectious and hostilely abrasive at the same time. I don’t envy that balancing act.
“Society ii” is a surefire banger that will get the Doc Marten clad punk kids kicking and jumping with its relentlessly upbeat tempo and earworm guitar riffs. “Suffer No Fool” is just off-kilter enough to stand outside of the contemporary hardcore movement of bands like Spy but also too raw to ever feel safe or cozy. By the time the song closes with a start-stop blast of drums and feedback, you’ll realize you’ve been holding your breath. Closer “Sellout” again delivers on quieter guitar moments though this time with Wire-like angular drumming that juxtaposes the song's infectious shout-along chorus. Through the roughly fourteen minutes of this record I couldn’t get a good read on just what the hell these musicians were thinking when they wrote these songs. I’m not going to say that Crop Rot have done a perfect job of blending their sonic palette into a monochrome but that is honestly what made this so charming. We need more bands taking these kinds of chances.
