Field Day – Acquisition (Little Rocket Records / Sense of Place Records, 2023)

Happy 2023. Strap yourselves in for more of the same misery / different day.

Anyways, with that out of the way, let us crack on with the review. If you’ve been kicking about on the internet or social media over the last few years, I’m sure you may have seen the name Field Day doing the rounds. You may even have given them a listen or bought a 7in or something. If not, I’ll introduce you… Field Day is a band from L.A that has been put together by Pete Cortner and Doug Carrion; former members of Dag Nasty and Descendents respectively. Vocals and bass respectively. They are joined by Shay Mehrdad on guitar, formerly of hardcore band Faded Grey (seek out their A Quiet Time of Desperation LP immediately – it’s boss), and Kevin Avery from Retox on drums. There we go, pedigree established.

Looking at any of the cover art they’ve had for any previous releases (2.0, Why, and Opposite Land), you’ll see use of the iconography from the Dag Nasty opus, Wig Out at Denko’s. A variation on this imagery can also be found on the cover of Acquisition. It’s fair to say that this should give you a good idea of what to expect.

Dag Nasty were obviously based out of Washington DC, and the 1980s DC style of hardcore punk and “Revolution Summer” post-hardcore sounds are one of the core elements in the sound of Field Day. Fleshing out the sound further, I’d say that if you dug on Pennywise before they went crap (i.e. after 1997’s Full Circle) and classic Bad Religion, then you are really going to enjoy this record a lot. I mean, like loads. This is powerful, dynamic, classic sounding chorus driven melodic hardcore (or skate punk or whatever you want to call it – it’s pretty much the same fucking thing) of the highest calibre.

Intelligent lyrics with a socially conscious bent are delivered with passion. The song structures are well thought out. The whole thing is so anthemic that the verses and so on almost make the entire songs feel like choruses. There are so many hooks here, it’s truly astonishing. It goes to show a couple of things for me: A. age is but a number. B. others in the “old guard” really, really need to pull their fucking socks up, innit. Who needs another religiously bought yet reliably disappointing re-up of Bad Religion et al (I mean, come on; be real) when Field Day are clearly blowing them out the goddamn water?

I think the only thing left to mention here is that of the 13 songs on this record (I’m going off what I can see on bandcamp here), 10 or 11 have previously featured on previous releases. Unfortunately I don’t own any of the previous releases on vinyl. Although this is effectively a collection with extras, one thing is certain: a great deal of thought has been put into the running order here; these joints flow like a greased pig down a waterslide, mate.

This assuredly deserves a solid Tony of Nurgle rating of 10/10

Up for pre-order now on transparent hot pink or solid hot purple vinyl.

Tony Maher