(Shock)

In the early to mid 90’s Hardcore was huge, the rave scene was booming on the underground and the genre of choice was Hardcore. However it became a victim perhaps of itself, got cheesy (see Happy Hardcore) and vanished. Well guess what folks, Hardcore is back and its time to lock up the children.

The Bonkers series has always been at the forefront of Hardcore and continued to push the sound as many of the stars either fell off the pages of magazines or switched genres ala Grooverider. Just because a genre becomes less popular doesn’t mean the tunes become wack and so Bonkers have pushed through and are again at the forefront of a booming genre.

The selection is over three discs and three of the scenes biggest names give us a take on their favoured sounds of Hardcore. Young Guns Hixxy & Sharkey sit beside legendary producer Scott Brown with ease, showing that there is a future for Hardcore.

Hixxy is behind the wheels on the opening mix and his largely exclusive selection gets off to a flyer making Oaky sound better than he has in years with his remix of Bullet In the Gun followed closely by Pretty Green Eyes. The style of this mix for the uninitiated could best be described as really quick paced hard house with breakdowns that are still quite melodic and vocals that tend to be sung. Standouts for me are Stay Now which again is supplied by Hixxy himself as well as Hardcore, Come Into My Dream & Tekno Harmony. The latter of the three supplied by scene stalwarts Sy & Unknown twisting a well known sample into a dark stomper. Overall it is a great mix but is a little more vocal that I like my hardcore but I stress that is personal preference.

Next up Sharkey takes control and after destroying dancefloors in Adelaide early this year I was anticipating this mix and I was not let down. Starting out on a breakbeat sound that will have many old skool heads reminiscing the opening three tracks are all from Ham the pick for me being Don’t Stop which features Sharkey on MC duties. From here the pace picks up and it is not for the faint hearted as the BPMs rise to what must be around 170, the break downs however still lean heavily to the breakbeat sounds of earlier as is Sharkey’s Hardcore of choice. Standout tracks on this mix are Kevin Energy with Fuckin’ With DA Frequency & Pilgrim the latter a dope remix as well as Acid Dreams from Scott Majestick and Sharkey’s excellent Freedom. Although this disc was initially a touch quick for me as I reintroduced myself to hardcore in a situation that hasn’t involved 8 or 9 hours of sets first the more I listen, the more I like and at this stage I would say it takes the honours.

To close the album one of the men who has pushed the scene constantly and produced new hardcore without stopping Scott Brown provides a largely self produced mix. Opening at a somewhat subdued pace (at least compared to Sharkey) the beats are quality from Dehumanize & Im In Heaven both by Brown through tracks like Commence & Sunrise the pace of the mix builds. Scott Brown has always produced tunes with female vocals and this selection is no exception, however he keeps them from stretching to the girly relm and that fit quite well overall. Towards the end the tracks take a somewhat unexpected turn, the basslines get heavy losing the melodic breakdowns of earlier and the female vocals are replaced by well selected Hip Hop samples. Standouts of this section are The Bounce by The Player and The World Is Mine from Tommy Knocker. The latter of the two cuts up the excellent Westside Connection track from a couple of years ago over a window rattling bassline that erases any bad memories I had of Hip Hop hardcore mashups (see Cold As Ice).

Hardcore always has had and always will have its knockers for perhaps being formulaic or not making you think, but simply that’s the way it is, it isn’t designed to take you on a journey its designed to rock a dancefloor. The recent resurgence has brought to the surface the quality of tracks still being produced and the Bonkers series has proved again why they are at the forefront of the scene. In the words of Sharkey last year in Adelaide “Get more Fucked and Get Rocking”.