Many bands are taking to releasing short ep’s to get their music out more often and in smaller doses to fans and Jimmy Sisco with his Platoon 1107 project has fully embraced this trend, rapidly releasing three free ep’s followed by a live ep. In the end, there is 25 songs of raucous hardcore punk with a couple covers thrown in for good measure.
Jimmy Sisco (ex-Absolved) started this solo side project, Platoon 1107, to honor those who went through boot camp with him at the Marine Corp Recruit Depot in San Diego. Outside of these four recent ep’s, Platoon 1107 has been on at least seven other releases including a split with the Cants, the full length, We Glory in the Title, the Live Free or Die ep, and three benefit compilations. Most of the releases feature Jimmy handling all the music duties but for the Alive 1 ep, he did assemble a band to record the live show and he is currently in process of assembling a regular live band for shows.
First off, let’s just say that the Tourette’s, Straight Edge, and Marine Forever…Forever Marine ep’s are all available for free download and are worth picking up even if you had to pay for them, so what are you waiting for? Free hardcore punk rock, go get it. With four ep’s and 25 songs, this review, if done normally would be way to long, so I’ll just hit some highlights below. In general, this collection does remind me quite a bit of the Minor Threat discography with its good but rough production, loud, fast guitars and shouted vocals. Songs are short, fast, and to the point and lyrically reflect what is close to Jimmy’s heart, God, country, brotherhood, and experiences gained from military service.
Tourette’s starts out with a cover of the Nirvana song “Tourette’s” which was off their In Utero album and honestly was fairly painful to listen to. I very much prefer the Platoon 1107 cover as it’s more of a coherent song rather than collection of noise. The rest of the ep has a number of shorter songs full of speed and fury that makes it seem longer than they really are due to the amount of music crammed into the time frame. Near the end of the ep is “Dissonant Counterpoint”, which really is a phenomenal song with a tough underlying groove through much of it and a brief guitar solo to break things up, consistent with other tracks on the ep.
Of course I have to comment on the cover of “Straight Edge”, a track that actually means a lot to me as well. Overall verdict, vocals have a bit less fury and attitude compared to Ian McCaye’s on the original, but the ending line “I’ve got straight edge” gets fully there and the song which has the lyrics cleaned up a bit, is a worthy cover. The rest of the ep continues in a style reminiscent a bit of Minor Threat as well, similar to Tourette’s. “American Patriot” and “First to Fight” similar to other songs on the album have that underlying fast hardcore groove to them as well, which can really get a pit moving.
Marine Forever…Forever Marine veers a bit more toward the metallic hardcore of bands like Hatebreed, which keeps things interesting and the regular and instrumental versions of Marines MC are great songs.
Alive 1, being a live album is a great way to end the collection of ep’s as it lets the listener catch a glimpse of what many of these songs would sound like live. Granted, the live sound is rough and recording not the best, but this is a live hardcore punk recording and as such is perfectly fine. The live set captured here contains some of the songs off the band’s other releases and to be honest, I like the newer material much better, but again, this is a good introduction to the band in a live setting.
Rating: 8/10
Written by John Jackson
“Tourettes” ep
Tourettes
Faithless Elector
The Albatross
Studio Punk
2000 Years
26 Counts of Battery
Dissonant Counterpoint
My Rifle and I
“Straight Edge” ep
Straight Edge
Absentee
A Long Ride from Hell
American Patriot
First to Fight
“Marine Forever…Forever Marine” ep
Marines MC
Boot!
March of the Platoon
Marines MC – instrumental
“Alive 1” ep
The Few the Proud (live)
Live Free or Die (live)
First to Fight (live)
My Rifle and I (live)
Relentless Leathernecks (live)
Sepratist (live)
Final Hour (live)
For God, For Family, For Country (live)
Band Members
Jimmy Sisco – Lead vocals, guitars
Steve – Guitars (on Alive I)
JohnnyBoy – Bass (on Alive I)
Tim – Drums (on Alive I)
Record Label: Thumper Punk Records, Aug/Sept 2016