Eclectic Blend Live at My Apartment cassette
A debut cassette release out of Rochester, NY. ECLECTIC BLEND is the side project of Jake Razor from LEAKING HEAD, with Jake sharing writing duties, playing guitar, and handling all vocals. Those who go back a little farther with that group of punks might also remember Jake as the vocalist of the criminally underrated western New York crossover band DEATH CAMP. A first release can really set the tone for what a band hopes to accomplish. With this debut being a live cassette, complete with fake crowd sounds between tracks, one might assume this is a novelty throwaway. Well, one would be wrong. The songwriting here is undeniable, with songs like “Anything But Human” sounding like a long-lost punk classic, now unearthed for the first time. To be this intrigued by a band based solely on a live cassette debut release seems a little crazy, but I am dying to hear the studio demo that has allegedly been in the works for years. In modern punk, there is a current trend of bands glomming onto the Oi! tagline and aesthetic, even when a band’s music sounds nothing like classic bands of that genre. With vocals as gruff as Jake’s, ECLECTIC BLEND could easily lean into that, but they don’t. Jake and company simply make the kind of punk they want to make, without attaching an easy and trendy label to their band.