ONLY ONE MODE is not just a debut album, and not just a coronation for Sydney hardcore.
It’s also a confidently delivered thesis statement for a band on a furiously accelerating ascent. Take a seat, or be yanked along by the scruff of your neck; you’re along for the ride either way.
SPEED: all caps, one word. An identity fully realised in name alone. It’s music for a dancefloor of complete catharsis. The gleeful, high octane fun of hurling yourself body first, brain second into a sticky-floored mosh pit. Riffs of titanic size transform any prim-proper bowling club into a gladiator pit promising ultimate glory. Not in a sense of competition with fellow dancers, but one that we’re all in this together, swinging limbs in beautiful uncoordinated-coordination – SPEED orchestrating with beautiful, driving relentlessness.
So, yes, it’s ONLY ONE MODE, and not one that lets up in any way. But crucially, as an interlude at the end of ‘DONT NEED’ reiterates, SPEED have style. Not only visually with their memorable music videos, and now iconic logo and merch designs. But musically as well, as they draw upon the lineage of beatdown hardcore’s ancestors in metal – dramatic change ups, transitions, breakdowns, and sure, why not a flute solo. There’s no need to invent the wheel when it’s already so strong, but a little chrome plating can’t hurt.
In a scene often crowded by gatekeepers with contradictory expectations of genre legitimacy and understandings of “community,” SPEED are able to cut through with a blunt, uncompromising authenticity. As if they understand that part of the reason hardcore is awesome is because it flippantly disregards irony as a concept. Bluntness and genuineness are its methods of choice; the same furious snarl that lead singer Jem Siow reserves for gronks and posers, also professes the ‘real life love’ of the band, of their scene that ‘you can’t fake.’
And it’s perhaps this that explains their incredible, increasingly global rise. They radiate complete confidence in themselves, in their real sense of community actually rooted in action – ONLY ONE MODE being released on Last Ride Records, a Newcastle label they’ve been with since the start. Remaining totally uncompromising, SPEED bend mass appeal to themselves, not the other way around.
ONLY ONE MODE is a landmark release for hardcore music at large, but also, as importantly, for Sydney music. For a city often haunted by phantoms of impostor syndrome and cultural servility, SPEED are an example where Being Yourself and repping your city is never cringe, never to be watered down. Just do the thing. And make sure you do it hard.
Words by Lindsay Riley