EP Review: Death Lottery / Hardship Anchors – Split

California’s Hardship Anchors and Florida’s Death Lottery previously announced that they will be releasing a five track split single on the 1st June 2019 via Freetime Boyz Inc, a release that features three new tracks from Death Lottery on the A side and two tracks from Hardship Anchors on the flip side. The split single will be available as a download and also as an extremely limited edition vinyl run of just 150 hand numbered copies, so if you want one you’ll have to be quick.

Lets start with Death Lottery, the split follows on from their first two EP’s, EP I and EP II, and with their latest release being titled split single it’s clear that titles are not their strong point, but what they lack in that area they more than make up for with their side of the split. Death Lottery hit the ground running with Cease And Desist, a track that bridges the gap between brash hardcore and spiky post punk, Trespass follows this with a blast of lo-fi experimental punk rock. Death Lottery‘s final Contribution is Wrong Side Of The Sun, which takes their raw driven garagey punk rock to it’s short sharp conclusion.

Hardship Anchors, a band I’ve not previously encountered, have a hard job in following up the opening triple threat from Death Lottery, and they do this in the best way possible. Hardship Anchors approach is less abrasive and offers some punk that is less experimental and more accessible than their counterparts contribution, but don’t take that as any kind of slight, both track, Human Condition and Fake, are every bit the equal of Death Lottery, they just approach things from a different perspective. Taking the two sides into account it’s impossible to pick a favourite and if anything this single demonstrates the joy of a well matched split release.

You can read more about Death Lottery and Hardship Anchors via their Facebook pages.

The Death Lottery and Hardship Anchors split can be pre-ordered here