Bastions - Hospital Corners

Bastions, though perhaps not revolutionising hardcore (or even pretending that they are), are an absolutely solid live band, and anyone who has seen them should have suitably high expectations for ‘Hospital Corners’. Fortunately, it’s a gritty and urgent beast that satisfies the ubiquitous desire of hardcore bands to “get to the fucking point”, and rampages relentlessly through a dozen chunky tracks. Though there are more than a few occasions where you can guess what’s coming, that’s as much of a fault with the genre as it is the band, and although nothing within is changing the world, it’s as interesting an album as any you’ll hear this year.