Core Of Reality #1

Cleveland residents Matt Wood is adamant on putting Cleveland hardcore back on the map, first with his band Live It Down and now with Core Of Reality fanzine. As someone who's been buying zines on the regular for close to 20 years now, I gotta say that you don't get that kind of quality with a first issue every other day.

A strong tone, lots of attitude but also plenty of substance so it's not just all bark and no bite, on the contrary. There's a bunch of solid interviews with Tom Brose of Confront who also played on a couple of early Integrity releases, Justin who sings for Richmond's own Killing Pace, Jannick Groelund of the most exciting current German band Echo Chamber.

And then the main piece is a proper in-depth chat with Shaun Filley of Puncture Wound/Gordon Solie Motherfuckers/Annihilation Time and many more, filled with lore and anecdotes about everything from his early days in the Clevo hc scene to doing art for other bands, to classic chaos and wrecking havoc at shows and the story behind that one insane stage diving picture where he punched a ceiling fan a few feet up in the air.

Classic sober layout and a couple reviews to top the whole thing up, honestly I don't know what else you'd want from a zine.