Union 13: Youth, Betrayal And The Awakening
Epitaph
Rating: B+
Union 13 has emerged as one of the more fortunate bi-lingual hardcore acts from L.A. Largely ignored by most record labels, Chicano hardcore still primarily exists as an underground scene with only a few exceptions. One of the main differences between this brand of music and most other punk scenes is that in many ways it more legitimate in its social and political conscious. Most of the people struggling to be heard in this scene have been fighting with poverty and discrimination in many ways. It was only by chance, a few years ago, that an intern for Epitaph caught this band at one of their backyard gigs. At the time this band exclusively performed at parties, refusing to involve themselves with any club scene. Since then they release two albums entitled “East Los Present” and “Why Are we Destroying Ourselves?”. Now Union 13 releases their third album for Epitaph and it is a high speed killer. Though they may have matured and refined their skills they still can crank out a solid album of high energy much to the level of 7 Seconds.
Now Union 13 may not be the best representatives for Chicano hardcore but right now this is the closest that the scene has gotten to the central nervous system of the mainstream populous and I hope that it will draw more support to that scene.
V.L.
