Integrity

Integrity

Ok I want to talk about the band integrity. Integrity has to be one of my most influential hardcore bands, not necessarily because I ever tried to emulate their style like some bands have in the past, but because they never seemes to care what was cool or popular at the time. I know that their singer did has been somewhat of a controversial figure in the hardcore scene in the past, but integrity was always a very original band, both in sound, and lyrical content. To this day few things will get me as stoked as hearing the opening bass line of hollow or the first few bars of systems overloaded. I know most people who might stumble upon this blog at some point in the future probably long after I have stopped contributing to it, will cite a variety of other bands to fill the slot that I have put this band in, and I have already heard people who want to give a band like cursed or some other band that is just not the same some kind of on the same level description but to me, integrity will always stay in a sub genre all it's own as one of the last hardcore bands to ever have a real mystique about them, and for that I am eternally greatful. One of the best and worst things about hardcore to me is bringing the band down to the level of the audience. When I was a kid I loved that aspect of punk, but as I became an adult and all my dreams of bands, and what they were doing and the lives they were leading were shattered by the truths of what band life was really like. I remember loving the stories that as I got older I realized how naive they were that bands were out there doing all these insane things, and I wish they all still had that level of mystique about them, but somehow a few bands were able to maintain a little bit even if not to the extent that they used to and for bands like integrity, neurosis, etc I will be eternally grateful for if nothing else that fact.